Stafelalp, Return of the Animals

By the summer of 1919 the war in Germany was over, and Kirchner had spent two years in the mountains above Davos, living among the dairy farmers of the Stafelalp, a high alpine pasture. He rented a hut up there from a local herdsman and fell into the rhythm of the alpine year, the driving of the herds up to the summer grass and their slow return once it thinned. The painting looks down over the blue roofs of the dairy toward the Rinerhorn, the peak across the valley, with goats and cows scattered on the green slope and small figures moving among them. In front stands the wooden trough where the animals were led to drink. Kirchner wrote with real respect about these farmers, about hard work done with great love and the care they gave their animals. Eberhard Kornfeld, the Bern dealer who knew the painter's estate better than anyone, gave this canvas to the Kunstmuseum Basel in 2017. A second view of the same alp hangs in St. Gallen.