(Nolde, Schleswig 1867–1956 Seebüll)
Landscape under a blue evening sky, 1935/1940, signed Nolde, watercolours on Japanese paper mounted on cardboard, 14 x 19,5 cm, framed

Photo certificate:
Prof. Dr. Manfred Reuther, formally Director of the Foundation Seebüll Ada und Emil Nolde, 12 October 2017, archive-no. Nolde A 50/2017.

Provenance:
European Private Collection

We are grateful to Prof. Dr. Reuther for his help in cataloguing this work.

The second watercolour, “Landscape under a blue evening sky” was created circa 20 years later, and is an exciting counterpart to the first painting. This depicts the sprawling fenlands of North Friesland around Seebüll close to the North Sea, where the painter Emil Nolde settled in 1927 and had his home and atelier Seebüll built according to his own designs. The setting sun in the centre of the picture is a glowing orgy of colour in bright orange, that draws its power from the complementary contrast with the deep green meadow and the interflowing blue and violet colour fields.

How conducive watercolour painting was for the intentions of the artist is clarified by Manfred Reuther: “The technique of watercolour handled freely and appropriately, the creative process of the wet, flowing application of the strong, unmixed colours, and therefore the requirement to work quickly, was particularly suited to Nolde’s artistic temperament, his pursuit of spontaneity, and direct style. He sought to curb the role of reason, which he felt to be restrictive, in the creative process, and to follow his intuition alone. (…) Thus, he always aimed to allow the unpredictable element of chance to take part in his working process as a creative component. He was as sensitive as a seismograph to such impulses and liked to allow himself to be led by his imagination in the circumstances of the moment. Nolde tried to transpose his marked closeness to nature into watercolour, through which he aimed to shape his inner impulses and artistic intentions in the pictorial process.”
Manfred Reuther, “‘auf die so oft erlebten herrlichen Naturstimmungen zurückgreifend, entstanden meine Bilder’. Landschaften, Gärten und Meere - Noldes Schaffen aus der Farbe”,
in: Emil Nolde. In Glut und Farbe, exhibition catalogue Belvedere, Vienna, Munich: Hirmer Verlag GmbH, 2013, p. 128f