Emil Nolde

Emil Nolde Sailor on stormy sea 1946 Watercolor on Japanese paper. 22.5 x 27.3 cm. Framed under glass. Signed 'Nolde' in black lower left. - In good, freshly colored condition. The edges circumferentially underlaid with Japan. With a photo-expertise by Martin Urban, Seebüll, dated August 13, 1991 (in copy). The work is registered and documented in the Nolde Foundation Seebüll under the number 1497. Provenance Sotheby's Berlin, auction German Art of the 20th Century, 28.11.1991, lot 48; private collection North Rhine-Westphalia The sea watercolors, painted in 1946 in St. Peter, North Frisia, are singular in Emil Nolde's oeuvre in their abstract quality and free, noisy treatment of color. The gifted watercolorist captured the atmospheric moods of the sea, the constantly changing interplay of weather and light conditions in dramatic, almost non-representational color spaces, leaving only isolated motivic references to the real world. The model was William Turner, whose art Nolde had studied at the Tate Gallery. Both artists pursued the approach of freely transforming impressions of nature in their subjectively perceived quality. Like a ghostly shadow, a sailing ship seems to float amidst the elements. Sea and sky flow seamlessly into one another and combine to form a unity of color nuances. The surface of the water is still, the ship glides calmly along. But a storm is brewing, the clouds gather in a threatening black-gray over the scenery, the last, diffuse evening light casts light reflections on the dark water. The unleashing of the elements seems imminent. By translating the natural conditions into the pure, disembodied color effect of the wet watercolor technique, Nolde created an impression of tense intensity, the proverbial calm before the storm.