Lot 11 | Emil Nolde | Hoher Himmel mit roten Wolken

Nolde's expansive landscapes

Nolde's creative vision is rooted in his beloved homeland of Schleswig-Holstein, near the German-Danish border. He feels such a connection to this flat stretch of land between the North and Baltic Seas that, although he was born Emil Hanson, he adopted the name of his birthplace, ‘Nolde,’ in 1902. Nolde spent most of his life in this area. The remote and expansive landscapes around his house in Utenwarf and later in nearby Seebüll were the source of his art.

Sky and Earth in Flux

The watercolour ‘High Sky with Red Clouds’ is one of a series of powerful and arresting landscape pieces that Nolde created throughout his career. The artist was keen to depict the sky and the sea as primal forces, often with storm clouds gathering or bathed in an eerie semi-darkness. Below lies the wide pasture landscape. The colours here literally flow over the paper, blurring the boundaries between heaven and earth.

Nolde's impressive watercolours, exposed to the region's dramatic weather systems, are charged with emotion and spirituality, in keeping with the tradition of northern romantic painting. ‘I merged with the clouds and moods of my native region,’ Nolde wrote in his autobiography (Emil Nolde, in: Welt und Heimat, Cologne 1965, p. 138). Through shrill colours and simplified forms, Nolde reveals his mystical connection and transcendental experience with his homeland.