Emil Nolde himself explains in his autobiography how he found his unmistakable interpretation of Expressionism: “Suddenly, without warning, I was driven to something entirely different. […] With the colour, with the means, the technical aspects, it was a hard struggle. Everything adopted, everything learned was nothing; everything had to be reinvented as if anew.” (II, 100, 107)
The Magician of Colour in Expressionism
Emil Nolde, Light Dahlias and Sunflowers (detail), painting 1943
At this time, in the early 20th century, Nolde is already over 30 years old. His unwavering desire to become an artist had led the farmer’s son, born in 1867, from his homeland out into the world. In his “years of wandering”, Nolde advanced his training as a free artist in private painting schools.
Perhaps as early as 1901 he had admired the stirringly modern art of Vincent van Gogh. A post‑Impressionist phase was followed by the new, expressive form of expression. This was recognised by a group of artists around 20 years younger, led by the painter Karl Schmidt‑Rottluff. In 1906, speaking on behalf of the artists’ group “Brücke”, he extended an invitation to Nolde to join, in recognition of Nolde’s “storms of colour”. Nolde belonged to the group only briefly and subsequently styled himself as a loner among the Expressionists.
Nolde’s artistic vocabulary is extraordinarily rich: pure, powerful colours detached from naturalistic representation, which he sets against each other in strong contrasts. He deliberately leaves parts of the canvas visible; the application of paint is varied, and his dynamic brushwork creates lively picture surfaces. A distinctive feature of Nolde’s work from 1914 onward is the use of strongly coloured grounds that contribute to the overall effect. Finally, he places his signature as a trademark with careful attention to colour choice and position as a design element.
Nolde allows us to share in his subjective view of the world: whether in radiant flower pictures, roaring seascapes, North Frisian landscapes shaped by mighty clouds, his ghostly fantasies, idiosyncratic religious paintings, free figure paintings including strong portraits in which Nolde seeks to convey the character of the depicted.
By the end of his life, Emil Nolde – who died in 1956 at the age of 88 – had produced more than 1,300 oil paintings and around 10,000 watercolours. To this day he is regarded as the “magician of colour” of Expressionism and as a “master of the watercolour”. The artist summed up: “Art itself is my language.” (II, 133)
