Emil Nolde

Emil Nolde, whose real name was Emil Hansen, was a farmer's son and always had close ties to nature. Consequently, he preferred landscapes, forests, and meadows as subjects for his paintings, which, along with his self-created gardens, served as his inspiration. Although primarily known for his expressive watercolors, Nolde only found his distinctive painting style through trial and error. In the mid-1890s, he first experimented with watercolor painting, but still in the traditional manner of observing nature. However, this did not satisfy the young artist—it wasn't until ten years later that Nolde would take up watercolor painting again. This time, he employed an expressive technique that allowed Nolde to express spontaneity and immediacy in his works. By using the wet-on-wet technique on absorbent Japanese paper, the artist created stirringly colorful paintings that radiated sensually and vibrantly on the painting surface through the overlapping and intermingling of colors. As in the present work, "Marsh Landscape and Haystack Under a Blue Sky", Emil Nolde usually chose a limited section of the image for his works. By applying the paint with a dripping wet brush to the absorbent Japanese paper, the contours blurred, forming edges, spots, or color centers. Through contrasting color groups, such as the delicate yellow of the haystacks and their black-violet shading, or the break from the juicy green of the meadow to the violet-blue of the sky, the artist gave his composition additional tension and the colors their unique luminosity. As a master of expressive watercolor painting, Emil Nolde painted generously with a free hand, captivating the viewer with his stirring colors even before recognizing the motif.