Gazette Drouot logo print
Lot n° 727

Emil Nolde

Estimate :
60 000 - 80 000 EUR

Emil Nolde (1867 Nolde - Seebüll 1956) - Marsh landscape. Watercolor and pen and ink on Japan. (1949). Approx. 36.5 x 46 cm. Signed lower right. The work was in the possession of the Ada and Emil Nolde Foundation, Seebüll. An expertise is being prepared, but was not yet available at the time of printing. - Typical landscape watercolor by Nolde with a low horizon line and dramatic cloud formations - The artist depicts the marsh landscape in expressive colors - Nolde takes up the tradition of Romantic landscape painting in his watercolors From 1938, Emil Nolde and his wife Ada retired from his Berlin studio, to which he never returned and which was destroyed along with many of his paintings in 1944, to their house by the sea in Seebüll. In the summer of 1926, Nolde had discovered Seebüll, a marshland landscape near the German-Danish border. Attracted by the northern landscape with its floodplains and seemingly endless lines of sky, the artist built his house in Seebüll to follow the course of nature and the path of the sun. The expansive view from Seebüll, the changeable weather and the artist's carefully tended flower garden become an important source of inspiration. In his marshland landscapes, Nolde confronts the viewer with the infinite expanse of sky and earth, thus taking up a tradition of Romantic landscape painting. He prefers low horizon lines, above which the dramatic sky bends endlessly over the fields. In the present watercolor, the wind drives dark purple, heavy rain clouds over a lush green landscape, which is only dimly lit by the sulphur-yellow evening light. There are generally no people in these landscapes. Here, the artist draws on the romantic idea of untamed nature and the nothingness of human beings. In his autobiography, the artist himself speaks of his "romantically fantastic free work". Martin Urban writes: "Thus his landscape paintings - now entirely in the spirit of the Romantic landscape art of Caspar David Friedrich - are not mere atmospheric pictures, but true 'soul landscapes', free and direct expressions of artistic and human experience." (Martin Urban, Emil Nolde Landscapes: Watercolors and Drawings, Cologne 1969, p. 7). Provenance: Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf; acquired from the previous owner in 1965; Company collection, Europe. Taxation: Regelbesteuerte (VAT: Regular Taxation).

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