Anna Wieds Garten

Luise Schiefler, who is mentioned as the first owner of this spectacular work by Nolde, was the wife of Gustav Schiefler, the editor of the catalogue raisonn of Noldes graphic work which was first published in 1910 (Vol. II in 1925). It was in August 1907, by which time Schiefler had already written the catalogue raisonns of the graphic work of Liebermann and Munch, that Schiefler visited Nolde and his wife Ada in Alsen and suggested producing the catalogue raisonn of his graphic work. In the introduction to the first editon of the Nolde catalogue raisonn, Schiefler stresses the fact that Nolde's graphic work at that stage would only comprise a time-span of five years but nevertheless, he felt, this publication would help disseminate Nolde's work to a wider audience. As a friend of Munch, Nolde, Schmidt-Rottluff, Heckel, Kirchner and others, Schiefler created his own collection of graphic work by contemporary artists. However, it was not only the graphic work that inspired Schiefler's admiration. In the same introduction he wrote: "Wer in eine Ausstellung Noldescher Gemlde tritt, wird zunchst von der Farbe in ihren Bann gezogen. Es ist, als she man in einen Strom bunten Lebens, der die Sinne mit frhlichen Eindrcken und Empfindungen fllt. Eine festliche Stimmung ergreift das Gemt, und man fhlt mit solchen Bildern msse Sonnenschein und Freude in die Wohnungen einziehen" (Emil Nolde, Das graphische Werk I, Martin Urban ed., 1995 p. 13).
His flower and garden pictures, a theme that he would always return to throughout his life time, provided him with a platform to apply all these vivid colours. Emil Nolde's fascination with flowers and gardens was deeply rooted in his childhood experiences. He grew up on his parents' farm in the village of Nolde in the north of Germany (Nolde's name by birth was Hansen; he later adopted the name of his village which has often been interpreted as the expression of a strong sense of home land). Nolde himself recalled his mother's garden: "I often walked with her in the garden, and so I could not help but watch all the flowers as they grew, blossomed and shone forth. There was a bed of noble, red roses where I could sometimes cut back the wild, thorny shoots for her. All the flowers bloomed for her pleasure and for mine, and the sun shone out over that garden"(Emil Nolde, Das eigene Leben, 1867-1902, 7th ed., Cologne 1994, p. 120). Nolde's fascination for flowers and gardens is also reflected in the fact that he created gardens around the houses he lived in, at Alsen, Utenwarf and Seebll. Gustav Schiefler was one of the few people who visited Nolde on Alsen. Schiefler recorded how Nolde would sometimes sit in front of his easel in the midst of a brilliant profusion of flowers: "... stocks and asters, pinks and carnations... while Frau Nolde and I chatted, as he worked he grew quieter and quieter, but his eyes glowed with pleasure as he applied one colour after another, subjecting the confusion of colour to the logic of form" (G. Schiefler, Festschrift fr Emil Nolde anllich seines 60. Geburtstages, Dresden 1927, p. 29). Nolde's approach to life and art implied a holistic vision, similar to those of the English and German Romantics of the early nineteenth century, who saw nature as a vital, organic system, with which ecstatic communion was desirable. Nolde himself described the two notions of enjoyment of nature and nature's significance on a deeper, more significant level: "It was midsummer in Alsen. The colours of the flowers attracted me irresistibly and at once I was painting. My first flower pictures came into being. The blossoming colours of the flowers and the purity of those colours - I loved them. I loved the flowers and their fate: thrusting up, blossoming, radiating, glowing, gladdening, bending, wilting, thrown away and dying" (Emil Nolde, Jahre der Kmpfe, Cologne, 1991, p. 100).