Emil Nolde

Florence, Palazzo Strozzi, L'Espressionismo, 1964, no. 425, illustrated in the catalogue

Artist's Handlist, 1910 a and b, no. 148
Artist's Handlist, 1910 c, no. 164
Artist's Handlist, 1930: '1908 Blumengarten: Stiefmütterchen'
Martin Urban, Emil Nolde, Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil-Paintings, 1895-1914, London, 1987, vol. I, no. 248, illustrated p. 226

Blumengarten: Stiefmütterchen is a remarkable example from Nolde’s important series of early flower and garden paintings, characterised by the wonderfully bright colours of the flowers which spread richly to fill the entire canvas surface. In this work, the spatial order of the pictorial composition and the traditional treatment of depth and perspective give way to an outburst of vivid colours that celebrate the richness of nature and demonstrate the modernist approach to painting that Nolde adopted in the early years of his career. Through his dynamic and spontaneous brushstrokes, the artist creates a surface texture that appears to suggest movement and air in the painting, and to recreate the lively, shimmering effect of flowers bathed in sunlight.

Emil and Ada Nolde moved to the small island of Alsen in the North Sea in 1903. They rented a fisherman’s cottage which became their permanent home for more than a decade (fig. 1). Wherever Nolde settled, whether in Alsen or later in Utenwarf or in Seebüll, he enjoyed planting and designing flower gardens, which provided a subject-matter for his paintings throughout his career. This passion can be seen as an expression of the artist’s fascination with nature and especially flowers; it was not only his own small garden, but also the surrounding gardens of his neighbours in Alsen, that provided Nolde with a rich source of inspiration. Like Claude Monet, who never tired of depicting his flower garden at Giverny, Nolde took great joy in painting the flower gardens. As Manfred Reuther has noted, ‘Wherever Nolde lived, he tried to reshape his surroundings and to create flower gardens; in Alsen, at his house at Utenwarf by the North Sea, and later […] at Seebüll. He longed for a life in harmony with nature, to which he had felt so close and unbroken an affinity since early childhood’ (M. Reuther, ‘Nolde and Seebüll’, in Emil Nolde (exhibition catalogue), The Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 1995, p. 69).

It was while living in Alsen between 1906 and 1908, the year when the present work was painted, that Nolde executed his first flower and garden paintings (figs. 2, 3 & 4). The artist recalled: ‘It was in midsummer. The colors of the flowers attracted me irresistibly and at once I was painting […] The blossoming colors of the flowers and the purity of those colors - I love them. I loved the flowers and their fate: shooting up, blooming, radiating, glowing, gladdening, bending, wilting, thrown away and dying’ (E. Nolde, quoted in Emil Nolde (exhibition catalogue), The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1963, p. 49). It was in his early flower paintings, including the present work, that Nolde sought to capture the drama of untamed nature, using a Fauve-like palette and applying paint to the entire painting surface in quick, expressive brushstrokes.

This sense of wilderness and fascination with colour certainly appealed to the German Expressionist group Die Brücke, who invited Nolde to become a member. Both his intense preoccupation with the subject of flowers and his emphasis on colour reflect Nolde’s continuing interest in the art of Van Gogh. The strong, primary tones, the bold brushstrokes and the magnificent texture of the surface in Blumengarten: Stiefmütterchen undoubtedly demonstrate a reference to the great Dutch post-impressionist. At the same time this work presents a powerful example of Nolde’s admiration of the beauty of nature, as well as his technique of using colour as the most important means of expression. In 1909 Nolde completed the first cycle of his garden and flower paintings, and it was not until he came back from the South Seas six years later that the artist returned to this subject matter – the celebration of gardens and flowers.

Having remained in the same family and not seen publicly for many decades, Blumengarten: Stiefmütterchen is a rare and important example of Nolde’s most accomplished early celebration of nature.

FIG 1. Nolde’s cottage in Alsen, 1910-15
FIG 2. Emil Nolde, Grosser Mohn, 1908, oil on canvas, Leopold-Hoesch-Museum, Düren
FIG 3. Emil Nolde, Trollhois Garten, 1907, oil on canvas, Nolde-Stiftung, Seebüll
FIG 4. Emil Nolde, Blumengarten. Zwei Frauen, 1908, oil on canvas, Private Collection