Emil Nolde — Abendliche Marschlandschaft mit Gehöft (1922)

Description

Full title“Abendliche Marschlandschaft mit Gehöft (Kleine Hütte und struppige Weide, wohl in Küstennähe)”

CharacteristicsWatercolor and ink pen drawing on firm smooth chamois paper.
Signed ‘Nolde.’ in brown ink lower right.
On the back of the frame cardboard with exhibition sticker and handwritten cat. No. “21”, a number label “218” and handwritten notes on the artist and year of origin and the owner.

ConditionPaper minimally browned.

Frame51 × 38 cm20.1 × 15 in

The story behindEmil Nolde’s drawing and painting talents combine in this watercolour to create an intimate landscape portrait. Unlike many of his moorland landscapes, the work derives its quality less from the relationship between sky and horizon than from the intimate mood of the landscape, rendered in shades of yellow and green.

The flowing surfaces of the watercolour contrast with the clear lines of the ink pen with which the artist creates the farm on the left and the willow on the right of the picture’s centre. In the multi-layered handling of the ink medium, Nolde’s special understanding of the relationship between the linear and the painterly is revealed to the viewer.