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Lot Essay
"Nolde understands the sea like no other painter before him. He sees it not from the beach or from a boat but as it exists in itself, devoid of any reference to man, eternally in motion, ever changing, living out its life in and for itself: a divine, self consuming, primal force that, in its untrammelled freedom, has existed unchanged since the very first day of creation..... " (Nolde's first biographer Max Sauerlandt writing in 1921) (Emil Nolde, M.Sauerlandt, Munich , 1921, pp.49-50.)
Painted in 1909, Sonnenuntergang ("Sunset") is one of the earliest of Nolde's celebrated seascapes. Executed with a series of swirling brushstrokes of intense colour, Sonnenuntergang is a powerful work that in both its colour and its mood anticipates the autumnal mood of Nolde's highly important series of Herbstmeer seascapes which he began one year later.
For Nolde, who grew up on the coast and was to spend almost all his life near the ocean, the sea was an imposing and powerful presence, an elemental force of nature that was an important and recurrent feature of both his life and his art. In Sonnenuntergang Nolde fuses the three distinct elements of the painting, sky, land and sea into an intense and highly emotive play of colour and light. Believing, like many of his Expressionist colleagues in the Brcke that colour was a direct means of expressing emotion, Nolde has attempted in this work to convey the drama of an ocean sunset through a heightened use of colour and a highly spontaneous if not impulsive use of brushstroke.
Like his predecessor and, perhaps greatest influence, Vincent Van Gogh, Nolde has worked swiftly over the surface of the picture in a manner that gives energy and life to the scene and heightens its emotional intensity. Like many of his contemporaries, Nolde was greatly suspicious of the rational element in art and elevated instinct above reason as being the most important source of creativity. "In art I fight for unconscious creation." he wrote to his friend Hans Fehr, reiterating elsewhere that "the quicker a painting is done, the better it is" (Jahre der Kmpfe Emil Nolde, Berlin 1934, p.95.) "When inspiration falters, even for a moment, barren reason leaps to the rescue, and then the work is ruined. If only I could catch it, I would pin reason against the wall and give it a good hiding..." (Emil Nolde Briefe aus den Jahren 1894-1926. ed. Max Sauerlandt, Hamburg 1967, p.31)
Sonnenuntergang is a perfect example of Nolde's exceptional skill in his instinctive approach to painting and his intuitive response to landscape. Radiating with life, the surface of the painting shimmers with glorious colour as Nolde luxuriates in both the texture and the hue of his oils. The separate elements of land, sea and sky are dissolved into one another by the golden light of the departing sun and the majesty of the moment in a way that lends such cohesion and purpose to the overall composition that the radiating warmth of the painting seems to actively intrude into even the real space surrounding the work.
Painted in 1909, Sonnenuntergang ("Sunset") is one of the earliest of Nolde's celebrated seascapes. Executed with a series of swirling brushstrokes of intense colour, Sonnenuntergang is a powerful work that in both its colour and its mood anticipates the autumnal mood of Nolde's highly important series of Herbstmeer seascapes which he began one year later.
For Nolde, who grew up on the coast and was to spend almost all his life near the ocean, the sea was an imposing and powerful presence, an elemental force of nature that was an important and recurrent feature of both his life and his art. In Sonnenuntergang Nolde fuses the three distinct elements of the painting, sky, land and sea into an intense and highly emotive play of colour and light. Believing, like many of his Expressionist colleagues in the Brcke that colour was a direct means of expressing emotion, Nolde has attempted in this work to convey the drama of an ocean sunset through a heightened use of colour and a highly spontaneous if not impulsive use of brushstroke.
Like his predecessor and, perhaps greatest influence, Vincent Van Gogh, Nolde has worked swiftly over the surface of the picture in a manner that gives energy and life to the scene and heightens its emotional intensity. Like many of his contemporaries, Nolde was greatly suspicious of the rational element in art and elevated instinct above reason as being the most important source of creativity. "In art I fight for unconscious creation." he wrote to his friend Hans Fehr, reiterating elsewhere that "the quicker a painting is done, the better it is" (Jahre der Kmpfe Emil Nolde, Berlin 1934, p.95.) "When inspiration falters, even for a moment, barren reason leaps to the rescue, and then the work is ruined. If only I could catch it, I would pin reason against the wall and give it a good hiding..." (Emil Nolde Briefe aus den Jahren 1894-1926. ed. Max Sauerlandt, Hamburg 1967, p.31)
Sonnenuntergang is a perfect example of Nolde's exceptional skill in his instinctive approach to painting and his intuitive response to landscape. Radiating with life, the surface of the painting shimmers with glorious colour as Nolde luxuriates in both the texture and the hue of his oils. The separate elements of land, sea and sky are dissolved into one another by the golden light of the departing sun and the majesty of the moment in a way that lends such cohesion and purpose to the overall composition that the radiating warmth of the painting seems to actively intrude into even the real space surrounding the work.