German Artists' Writings in the XX Century - Emil Nolde, Mein Leben [My Life] Part Three - Nolde Narrating on Himself

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German Artists' Writings in the XX Century - 8

Emil Nolde 

Mein Leben [My Life]
Part Three -  

Nolde Narrating on Himself

(review by Francesco Mazzaferro)

[Original Version: October 2015 - New Version: April 2019.  Please be aware that an important exhibition on the issues discussed in this blog is being held in Berlin between April and September 2019 - "Emil Nolde. A German Legend. The Artist during the Nazi Regime." The exhibition is curated by Bernhard Fulda, Christian Ring and Aya Soika, in cooperation with the Nolde Foundation. The start of the research leading to the current exhibition is mentioned in this post. The current exhibition marks a fundamental change of attitude of the Nolde Foundation compared to the past]

Fig. 8) Emil Nold, Years of Struggle, 1934

Go Back to Part One

An anti-intellectual painter 

As already mentioned, Nolde did not have a solid cultural background. He did not seem to be concerned on this, as he wrote: “The one who can learn a lot, is not a genius” [62]. The Memoirs seem to reveal that Nolde had a strong antipathy for reading; that he failed to be admitted in the Munich art academy, the town which was rivaling Paris as centre of modern art, at that time; that – whenever he came in contact with artistic circles, at different times of his life, (like in Munich and Dachau in 1898-1899, in Dresden in 1909, in Berlin in 1909-1910 and in Cologne in 1912) – he failed to establish a deep and lasting relation with any of them. He was a man of great personal amities or enmities, sympathies and antipathies.  In no way, a man of cerebral friendships.  His long-life emotional energy was spent for the wife and a fairly limited of friends, often non-painter friends, who however showed understanding for his painting.

Nolde’s anti-intellectualism reflected itself in a general opposition against any theorisation of art. Drawing a parallel between the art on the last years of the 19^th century and that of his days, he commented: “Pleinairism, Realism, Impressionism, Pointillism and even more art streams with a name having a foreign sound, like 30 years later: Expressionism, Futurism, Dadaism, Constructivism, Abstraction, New Objectivity, New Romantic, Ingresism, and Surrealism. Is this multiplicity a richness or a weakness? Was it like this also in previous periods of great art? Are the artists who want this? Or is the intention of an art scholarship, which is much occupied in the attempt to categorise every small art impulse in a box? And yet, are not generous artists more significant that theories and movements?” [63]

This does not mean, however, that Nolde did not show passion for painters in his Memoirs: Grünewald, Feuerbach, Leibl, Marées among the Germans, Millet among the pre-impressionists and Gauguin e Cézanne among the post-impressionists in France; Rembrandt and van Gogh in the Netherlands; Böcklin and Hodler in Switzerland; Goya in Spain; Zorn, Josephson and Munch in Scandinavia; Ensor in Belgium; Watts and Whittler in England; the futurists in Italy. [64]

Nevertheless, “the painter does not need to know much: it is beautiful, if he can paint unerringly, under an instinct-driven direction, as he breathes, as he walks. For a creative person, intelligence is anti-artistic, it can be a wrong friend for the artist.” [65]

The painter of colours, instinct and deep soul 

In concrete terms, what do Nolde’s Memoirs tell us about his art?

(1) We learn directly from him about the overarching role of colour in his art language. In fact, he writes: “Colours have become my language” [66]. “Dreams are like tones, tones are like colours and colours like music. I love the music of colours” [67].

“Colour, the material of the painter: colours in his own life, crying and smiling, dream and happiness, hot and sacred as love songs and erotic, like songs and beautiful hymns! Colours vibrate like silver and bronze bells, heralding happiness, passion and love, soul, blood and death.” [68]  “Very often in paintings, the colours determined the picture and the composition; colours are the means of the painter, like the words are those of the poet and the tones are those of the composer in music. Colour is strength. Strength is life. Only strong harmonies carry weight. Very soon I occupied myself with colours, at the beginning with the small drawings of the ‘Colour characters’ (Farbencharacktere). Later one, I tried to reproduce in colour the range of singing voices: dark purple, rust red, fire red and grey blue were such sounds. The feeling in tones (be it joy, jubilation, sadness, tragedy, dream, or other mental impulses), can be passed in colours; yes, each image - through the value and the sound of his colours - can arise a mental impulse in every person who is colour-receptive.” [69]

Nolde uses colours, in particular, as a mean to explore and discover his own emotions in front of nature. For instance, to design flowers in all their variations: “Sprouting, blooming, bright, glowing, gratifying, leaning, withering, ending discarded in the pit” [70]. And immediately afterwards he says he conceives colours as living elements: as a painter, he wants to make sure “colours would develop according to their own sequence (folgerichtig), in the same way the nature produces amber or crystals, in the same way moss and algae grow, in the same way flowers must unfold and blossom under the sunrays.” [71] Colours do not only have their own life: they also live of the contrast among each other: “A colour defines through its proximity the way in which neighbour colours are irradiated, exactly like in the music a tone in a chord receives its sound effects from its neighbouring tone” [72]. 

[2] We also learn from him about the artisanal passion he had for art techniques. This is not only due to his interest for craft and materials (he taught applied arts in St. Gallen), but also to the fact that he considered the extension of techniques as an opportunity to expand the room for invention and creation: “Invention and creation were my happiness. I did not feel bound to anything else but technical options. Every creative gift was to develop itself in liberty; past, present, future, all was the same, I had to follow only my own pleasure.” [73]

The first technique was that of woodcut. We should of course recall that he had a 5-year professional background as a wood carver, and therefore mastered perfectly woodcuts [74].

Soon after, he broadened his craft progressively. First, he was very proud of his Berlin folder of etchings in 1905, using new combinations of acids and metals, and merging the results of works by Dürer, Rembrandt and Goya [75]. He was proud that one of the most important art collectors of Hamburg, the judge Gustav Schiefler, bought them [76]. Schiefler published the graphic work of Nolde in two volumes, published in 450 exemplars. An exemplary of the two original books is quoted EUR 13,500 by the antiquarian Schmidt and Günther in Kelkheim [77].

In a letter to Ms. Rosa Schapire on 12 November 1907 (we will speak on her later on) he announced his decision to turn to etchings with cold needle [78]. He became therefore one of the artists recovering that technique in XX century Germany.

From etching he moved to other techniques: “After – years before – I had started etching and the carving of boards for wood engraving, I looked for further graphical techniques. With the by far easiest means, like those used to print out the gazettes to be found in taverns, I produced some hectographs.  Later on, I turned in particular to the third sister art, lithography (…)” [79]. Also his lithography prints were purchased by Gustav Schiefler [80].

A special passion moved him to use watercolours: “After I had eagerly handled with watercolours in the early days of St. Gallen, I had not used any more this technique until around 1908. Then my incursion started in this almost forgotten technique in Germany, and since then painting with watercolour has since remained a need for me. - I painted people and landscapes, animals and flowers and also free phantasies. From the intimate, but something petty meticulous nature of my earliest watercolours I worked in endless troubles through to a more free, broader and more liquid presentation that requires a special, thorough understanding of the structure and nature of the paper (and its reactions) and the possibilities of colours, but - perhaps above all - the ability of a sensuous setting of the eye.” [81] 

While technology is important, its serves the scope of multiplying sources for art invention and cannot be a purpose in itself. “In the circle of artists, technical innovation (…) should not be overvalued! Technique is only technique and by itself nothing but only a means. Technique can be anti-artistic, if it shines too much. Only the artistic value in the work is essential and lasting” [82].

[3] While Nolde did not like art abstraction, he also considered that nature had not simply to be reproduced. “To imitate in a trustful and precise way nature does not produce any art work. A wax figure, equal to the nature model to the point you might confuse it, only arouses disgust. Only the translation of nature with the addition of the own soul and spirit transforms work into art. I tried to follow those sensations. I often stood in front of the grey nature. Nature is so simple; it can be animated through sun, wind and clouds. And thereby it can become so wastefully rich.” [83]

[4] We discover that he painted instinctively, in an often ecstatic way, almost surprising himself and at times going beyond his own intentions [84]. He was a very emotional painter, often brought to pure joy or desperation, according to what he perceived as a successful painting or not: in case of success, he gave life to colours, otherwise he killed the colours. He is a painter of pure inspiration: “All free amazing pictures I painted in this time [note of the editor: 1911-1913], and also later on, emerged without any one example or model, even without a definite idea. Quite well I could imagine a work down to the smallest detail, and it was mostly a lot nicer than afterwards it could be painted. For this I tried to avoid any previous reflection. A very vague idea – in embers and colour – was sufficient. Under the work of the hands, the work took shape” [85]. In a passage of the 1934 Memoirs (1/1), not reproduced afterwards, he wrote: “Pictures are spiritual creatures. The spirit of the painter lives in them. The best ones are demanding.” [86]

[5] He was a painter of contrasts and oppositions. “Dualism was given a wide space in my pictures and also in the graphic. With or against each other: men and women, pleasure and pain, deity and the devil. Colours were contrasted with each other: cold and warm; light and dark, dull and strong. In most cases - after a colour or a chord was struck as a matter of course - a colour determined the other, very emotionally and mindlessly probing in the very beautiful colour range of the palette, in pure devotion and sensual joy for creation." [87]

[6] In his art production, religious paintings are those which he really loved most, but also the most difficult and risky for him. It is worth mentioning now that exactly religious paintings, which for Nolde had a value and a strength which he equaled to German medieval painting, were rejected by the official Churches (because they were perceived as being too unconventional, and even iconoclastic) as well as, later on, by Nazi art theorists, with the aggravating argument that many of the figures were perceived as being too ‘Semitic’. 

But the risk of religious painting was not only linked to external pressure. “I followed an irresistible desire to represent deep spirituality, religion and intimacy, however without any will or knowledge or rationalisation. (…) Following such sensations, I painted my religious paintings. However, besides the contrast between bright and dark, and between the coldness and warmth of colours, and together with the representation of spiritual-religious figures, also a difficult intimate religious cogitation moved the painter, a veritable spiritual rumination which was so despairing that it could almost bring him to full insanity. (…) If I had been sticking to the letter of the Bible and the stiff dogma, I am sure that I would have not been able to paint so strongly these images (…) which I conceived most profoundly. I had to be free from an artistic point of view: not to have God in front of me as an adamantine Assyrian ruler, but God in me, warm and sacred like Christ’s love. With [these religious] paintings the turnaround took place from the optically external appeal to the felt internal values. They [the paintings] became milestones and not only for my work.” [88]

[7] He tells us about his passion for the art of primitive peoples, of which he loved “the absolute naturalness, the intensive – often grotesque – expression of force and life in the simplest form.” [89]. Also this – one can disclose in advance – was most probably an aspect which was unacceptable to Nazi art theorists. And yet his interest is not ethnological: he is at the search of the elementary, originating, primordial element in his own Nordic-Germanic culture, and tries to find it where modern culture has – at least he hopes – left intact the powers of creation of individuals. He says: “The art expressions of the indigenous people are unreal, rhythmic, and ornamental as it has always been the primitive art of all peoples, including of the Germanic people in their very beginning” [90]. For him, studying indigenous art was a way to better understand Egyptian, Coptic, Romanesque, and Gothic art [91]. 

[8] He sets however limits to art innovation, pleading against abstraction in art. When Nolde reached the height of his success in 1927, cubism and dada art existed since around ten-twenty years, and marked the new frontier of avant-garde. Nolde did not like them, even if he stated it in dubitative form. “I do not know if fine arts will gain if they leave their existing ground. Each artist born to create has its own way of express himself. Pushing originality, sharp ingenuity and gadgets are not art. All of this is too light and cannot replace the deeper spiritual functions of human beings. (…) In my art I try to avoid every form of violent stylisation or dissolving disintegration of an objective form, and even constructive or cubist elements.” [92] And referring implicitly to Wassily Kandinsky’s artwork and art theory: “Follies and jokes should pretend to transform the newest into mystics and spirituality, and so in such a deceptive way that it can only be explained by multi-syllabic complex foreign words. I locked myself against it. Abstract painters scoffed me. One only defended me: Paul Klee.” [93]

[9] Nolde combines all elements above to define a new national German art. He feels his duty was to inaugurate a new German stream of modern art (‘rooted on homeland’ – im Heimatlichen wurzelnd [94]), which would be differentiated from the French one (his hostility to French painting was already mentioned above) as well as from Jewish influence (see below). The 1934 version contains an implicit invitation to rebellion against foreign-influenced art: “In the German people (Volk) nobody protested, recognising this. Also not among artists, if not when they censured the amazing prizes for French paintings. My blood started at a very stage to boil for excitement, until my rebellion and my difficult struggles followed” [95]. Here, the concept of ‘struggles’ (Kämpfe) is repeated, definitely with a precise German nationalist ideological direction. In this case the sentence is cancelled only starting from the U/1 version (1976).

In conclusion, Nolde clearly understood to be an art innovator both in terms of its intensity (e.g. colour) well as of its techniques (e.g. watercolours). He also stressed that “artists are very different, fundamentally different and should be like this” [96]. He wrote to be aware of his intentionally “very strong art” (ganz starke Kunst) and that it was not due to become “popular art” (Volkskunst) nor to be officially recognised [97]. Also when success came, he continued to divide the public opinion: he referred to the “dispute on Nolde” (Noldestreit) [98]. In fact, “I knew that my art was a couple of decades ahead.” [99] However, after long passages describing all refusals he obtained from art galleries, museums and criticism, he also wrote: “I was never able to understand such a strong aversion against my art, against an art which seems to me to so obviously simple.” [100] And he used very sad tones, when he noticed that no church had been ever ready to exhibit any of his religious paintings (the ones he loved most in his art production) and that he had never obtained one single command from a public institution [101]. Nevertheless, he also had strong and important supporters among art critics and collectioners: besides the already mentioned Sauerlandt, also Schiefler, Graef, Probst, and Osthaus. However, in a letter of 26 December 1924, commenting on the art critics in favour or against his art, he concluded emphatically: “Painter, you are being lynched” [102].

End of Part Three
Go to Part Four 

NOTES

[62] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), Cologne, Edited by Manfred Reuther, DuMont, 2013, p. 455. Quotation at page 97

[63] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 99.

[64] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted),  See pp. 151, 167, 240, 314, 375.

[65] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 230.

[66] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 228.

[67] Nolde, Emil – Jahre der Kämpfe (Years of Struggle), Berlin, Rembrandt Verlag, 1934, pp. 262. Quotation at page 203.

[68] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 229.

[69] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 365.

[70] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 164.

[71] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 165.

[72] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 165.

[73] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 229.

[74] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 158.

[75] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 157.

[76] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 156.

[77] See http://www.zvab.com/buch-suchen/titel/emil-nolde--das/autor/schiefler.

[78] Nolde, Emil – Briefe aus den Jahren 1894-1926 (Letters from years 1894-1926), Berlino, Furche Verlag, 1967, pp.183. Quotation at p. 65.

[79] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 246.

[80] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 247.

[81] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), pp.366-367.

[82] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 158.

[83] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 193.  

[84] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 144.

[85] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 230-231.

[86] Nolde, Emil – Jahre der Kämpfe (Years of Struggle), 1934 (quoted), p. 183

[87] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 229.

[88] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 194-195.

[89] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 226.

[90] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 227.

[91] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 244.

[92] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), pp.402-403.

[93] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 403.

[94] See p. 122 of the 1934 version of the second volume (2/1), included also in the version of 1958 (2/2) and 1967 (2/3), but not reported any more in the 1976 version.

[95] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 122.

[96] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 131.

[97] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 160.

[98] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 206.

[99] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 228.

[100] Nolde, Emil – Mein Leben (My Life), (2013), (quoted), p. 245.

[101] At page 226 of the 1934 version of the second volume (2/1).

[102] Nolde, Emil – Briefe aus den Jahren 1894-1926 (quoted), p.168.