Emil Nolde

Aage Vilstrup, Copenhagen (1939)
Bent Vilstrup-Møller, Gentofte/Denmark (by descent from the above by 1953)
Galerie Wittrock, Dusseldorf (1985)
Private Collection, Germany (acquired from the above in 1986; sale: Sotheby's, London, 8th December 1997, lot 37)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Stilles Meer, executed in 1936, is a most atmospheric example of one of Nolde’s later seascapes. Nolde lived on the coast all his life and the sea was a dominant theme in his œuvre. In painting these seas Nolde sought to provide not just a depiction of nature but something which expressed his own emotional response to it; as he himself said ‘I wished for a form beyond nature itself’ (quoted in Emil Nolde (exhibition catalogue), Arts Council of Great Britain, London, 1968). Nolde wanted to evoke feelings and emotions, to create the visual equivalent of a physical experience.

It was a basic tenet of the artists of Die Brücke that colour could be used to convey inner states and moods. Nolde’s seascapes, with their interplay between waves and clouds, between water and sky, are natural vehicles for the primal energy and emotion associated with the expressionist impulse. The lyrical tones of blue of Stilles Meer are an unusually powerful evocation of a rare serenity.

Later, in 1942, Nolde wrote: ‘There is silver blue, sky blue and thunder blue. Every colour holds within it a soul, which makes me happy or repels me, and which acts as a stimulus. To a person who has no art in him, colours are colours, tones tones … and that is all. All their consequences for the human spirit, which range between heaven to hell, just go unnoticed.’ (quoted in Nolde-Forbidden Pictures (exhibition catalogue), Marlborough Fine Art Ltd., London, 1970, p. 9).