.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Nacktes Mädchen im Schilf (Fränzi) (recto); Frau und Mädchen nackt im Schnee (verso) is an important double-sided canvas by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner that showcases the evolution of his painterly style over the course of a tumultuous decade. On one side, a young woman wanders through a lush bank of reeds in a picture dated to 1911, and the artist’s seminal summer trips to the Moritzburg Lakes near Dresden. Turning the canvas over, two towering nude female figures appear amid the monumental peaks of the Swiss Alps, where Kirchner found himself living in the early 1920s. Filled with the vibrant colours and energetic brushwork, this pair of scenes illustrate not only the artist’s continued fascination with the theme of the nude figure in the open air, but also the dramatic shifts in his style and approach to form during this pivotal period of his mature career.
Situated in the forests just northeast of Dresden, the small hamlet of Moritzburg had become an artistic arcadia during the summers of 1909-1911, offering Kirchner and his comrades from the Brücke group, Erich Heckel and Max Pechstein, an idyllic environment to escape to, away from the hectic life of the city. In this peaceful, verdant location the artists spent their days bathing and playing games with their female companions, working on their canvases directly alongside one another, and painting the human form immersed in the natural world. Freed from the social mores and superfluous trappings of contemporary life, the Brücke artists believed they could return to a deliberately simple way of life, which would liberate their creative energies and open themselves to new, intuitive forms of expression. Painting with a new freedom, they sought to render their subjective experiences, as what Kirchner described as, ‘free drawing of free human beings in free naturalness’ (quoted in U. Lorenz and N. Wolf, eds., Brücke, Cologne, 2008, p. 8).
Created during Kirchner’s final summer in Moritzburg, Nacktes Mädchen im Schilf (Fränzi) encapsulates this idealised vision of people living freely and harmoniously within nature. Focusing on the youthful form of one of his favourite models during the Dresden years, Kirchner roots the figure in the rich green vegetation of the lakeshore, the curves of her upper body echoed in the swaying reeds and fronds of grass that surround her. Set against the vibrant foliage and bright pink terrain, the young woman’s body is captured in energetic brushstrokes of soft, neutral tones, her contours executed in strong blue lines, reflecting Kirchner’s wish to capture the raw essence and vitality of life with an intuitive and unadulterated directness and spontaneity.
While the summer sojourns in Moritzburg resulted in an important breakthrough in Kirchner’s painterly style, the artist’s joy in the radical achievements of this period was to be short lived, as the outbreak of the First World War dramatically altered his life forever. Fearing conscription, Kirchner decided to voluntarily enlist in the German army, in the hope that he would be able to choose the branch of service he would enter, reporting for duty as a driver in the Mansfelder Field Artillery on 1 July 1915. The strict, regimented rule of life as a soldier took a dramatic toll on Kirchner’s mental and physical health however, and within four months he was invalided out of the army on the understanding that he would enter a sanatorium for urgent treatment. Anxiety about potentially being redrafted continued to plague the artist, and in the ensuing years he suffered from a series of nervous breakdowns, compounded by substance abuse. He travelled to Switzerland for treatment, staying on the shores of Lake Constance before moving to a house above Frauenkirch near Davos, but was unable to work regularly again until around 1919.
A combination of his illness and his new life in the mountains led to a radical reassessment of his earlier work and the gradual emergence of a completely new style. Kirchner’s recovery brought about a fervent urge to paint once more and, eager to translate his impressions immediately onto canvas, he set about re-working several of the earlier paintings still in his possession, using the backs of others as the supports for new compositions. In 1921, Kirchner re-stretched Nacktes Mädchen im Schilf (Fränzi) so as to begin the work that would become Frau und Mädchen nackt im Schnee on the other side. This painting, not fully completed until 1923, embodies the more joyous and colourful style of Kirchner’s Davos paintings, the statuesque forms of the woman and young girl filled with bold strokes of vibrant pinks, greens, blues and purples.
As Kirchner wrote of this new style, the more vibrant, flat form colour of such works is ‘evoked by the clear mountain air… The colouration is not found in Nature, but born of the painter’s creative intention. In conjunction with the other colours in a picture, it strikes a specific note expressive of the painter’s personal experience. The visible world suggests the shape and colour, but is modified to such an extent that an entirely novel pictorial form comes into being’ (quoted in L. Grisebach, ed., Ernst Ludwig Kirchners Davoser Tagebuch, Ostfildern, 1997, p. 249). The painting most likely featured in a series of one-man shows dedicated to Kirchner’s art through the 1920s, and remained in the artist’s collection for the rest of his life.
Situated in the forests just northeast of Dresden, the small hamlet of Moritzburg had become an artistic arcadia during the summers of 1909-1911, offering Kirchner and his comrades from the Brücke group, Erich Heckel and Max Pechstein, an idyllic environment to escape to, away from the hectic life of the city. In this peaceful, verdant location the artists spent their days bathing and playing games with their female companions, working on their canvases directly alongside one another, and painting the human form immersed in the natural world. Freed from the social mores and superfluous trappings of contemporary life, the Brücke artists believed they could return to a deliberately simple way of life, which would liberate their creative energies and open themselves to new, intuitive forms of expression. Painting with a new freedom, they sought to render their subjective experiences, as what Kirchner described as, ‘free drawing of free human beings in free naturalness’ (quoted in U. Lorenz and N. Wolf, eds., Brücke, Cologne, 2008, p. 8).
Created during Kirchner’s final summer in Moritzburg, Nacktes Mädchen im Schilf (Fränzi) encapsulates this idealised vision of people living freely and harmoniously within nature. Focusing on the youthful form of one of his favourite models during the Dresden years, Kirchner roots the figure in the rich green vegetation of the lakeshore, the curves of her upper body echoed in the swaying reeds and fronds of grass that surround her. Set against the vibrant foliage and bright pink terrain, the young woman’s body is captured in energetic brushstrokes of soft, neutral tones, her contours executed in strong blue lines, reflecting Kirchner’s wish to capture the raw essence and vitality of life with an intuitive and unadulterated directness and spontaneity.
While the summer sojourns in Moritzburg resulted in an important breakthrough in Kirchner’s painterly style, the artist’s joy in the radical achievements of this period was to be short lived, as the outbreak of the First World War dramatically altered his life forever. Fearing conscription, Kirchner decided to voluntarily enlist in the German army, in the hope that he would be able to choose the branch of service he would enter, reporting for duty as a driver in the Mansfelder Field Artillery on 1 July 1915. The strict, regimented rule of life as a soldier took a dramatic toll on Kirchner’s mental and physical health however, and within four months he was invalided out of the army on the understanding that he would enter a sanatorium for urgent treatment. Anxiety about potentially being redrafted continued to plague the artist, and in the ensuing years he suffered from a series of nervous breakdowns, compounded by substance abuse. He travelled to Switzerland for treatment, staying on the shores of Lake Constance before moving to a house above Frauenkirch near Davos, but was unable to work regularly again until around 1919.
A combination of his illness and his new life in the mountains led to a radical reassessment of his earlier work and the gradual emergence of a completely new style. Kirchner’s recovery brought about a fervent urge to paint once more and, eager to translate his impressions immediately onto canvas, he set about re-working several of the earlier paintings still in his possession, using the backs of others as the supports for new compositions. In 1921, Kirchner re-stretched Nacktes Mädchen im Schilf (Fränzi) so as to begin the work that would become Frau und Mädchen nackt im Schnee on the other side. This painting, not fully completed until 1923, embodies the more joyous and colourful style of Kirchner’s Davos paintings, the statuesque forms of the woman and young girl filled with bold strokes of vibrant pinks, greens, blues and purples.
As Kirchner wrote of this new style, the more vibrant, flat form colour of such works is ‘evoked by the clear mountain air… The colouration is not found in Nature, but born of the painter’s creative intention. In conjunction with the other colours in a picture, it strikes a specific note expressive of the painter’s personal experience. The visible world suggests the shape and colour, but is modified to such an extent that an entirely novel pictorial form comes into being’ (quoted in L. Grisebach, ed., Ernst Ludwig Kirchners Davoser Tagebuch, Ostfildern, 1997, p. 249). The painting most likely featured in a series of one-man shows dedicated to Kirchner’s art through the 1920s, and remained in the artist’s collection for the rest of his life.