Stormy Sea is an watercolor landscape painting by German painter Emil Nolde, executed in 1930. It has the dimensions of on 34 by 45 cm. The painting is held in the collection of the Sprengel Museum in Hanover, Germany.
This piece has very organic lines and there are many spots of bright colors, in particular blues and oranges. There are two boats on the horizon and a steam boat off to the right side which is a nod to modernism and industrialization. The bright fiery orange on the horizon gives a sense of drama to the piece and the white color in the foreground shows the crests of the moving waves. The waves juxtaposed against the fiery horizon animate the painting, and the colors help to depict the tumultuous waves. The orange light in the sky imbues energy and excitement against the dark blue waters.
Nolde elevated watercolor far above the level of a specialized technique and achieved works of breathtaking and ephemeral beauty which stand unique in the history of twentieth-century art. [1] His use of color conveys movement and emotion, and the mysterious quality of painting is typical of the Die Brücke style. Watercolor is a medium that Nolde liked because he could translate his ideas and concepts to creation faster than oil painting which requires that it is drawn out and planned before it is put on canvas. [2]
Nolde said about his paintings, “To the annoyance of art historians I shall destroy all lists that give information about the dates of my pictures.” [3] His wife, Ada Nolde, kept a precise catalog of his oil paintings but not of his watercolors.
His work was condemned in the III Reich as Degenerate Art. Nolde was heavily censored even though he was Nazi supporter. During this time many of his works were removed from German museums and he was heavily censored by the Nazi Party during the 1930s and 1940s. [Oxford Art online 1]
Nolde’s landscapes are not mere pictures of mood or reflections of the changing atmosphere of a year or a day, but are meant to be truly ‘landscapes of the soul’, the free and direct expression of artistic and human experience. [4] He expresses true feeling and emotion with the fluidity and bright colors present in his watercolors. Nolde was able to create work faster through watercolor. Watercolor was Nolde’s primary medium from the 1930s until his death.
Emil Nolde was a German-Danish painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke, and was one of the first oil painting and watercolor painters of the early 20th century to explore color. He is known for his brushwork and expressive choice of colors. Golden yellows and deep reds appear frequently in his work, giving a luminous quality to otherwise somber tones. His watercolors include vivid, brooding storm-scapes and brilliant florals.
Degenerate art was a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party in Germany to describe modern art. During the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, German modernist art, including many works of internationally renowned artists, was removed from state-owned museums and banned in Nazi Germany on the grounds that such art was an "insult to German feeling", un-German, Freemasonic, Jewish, or Communist in nature. Those identified as degenerate artists were subjected to sanctions that included being dismissed from teaching positions, being forbidden to exhibit or to sell their art, and in some cases being forbidden to produce art.
Watercolor or watercolour, also aquarelle, is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-based solution. Watercolor refers to both the medium and the resulting artwork. Aquarelles painted with water-soluble colored ink instead of modern water colors are called aquarellum atramento by experts. However, this term has now tended to pass out of use.
Henri-Edmond Cross, born Henri-Edmond-Joseph Delacroix, was a French painter and printmaker. He is most acclaimed as a master of Neo-Impressionism and he played an important role in shaping the second phase of that movement. He was a significant influence on Henri Matisse and many other artists. His work was instrumental in the development of Fauvism.
The Brücke (Bridge), also Künstlergruppe Brücke or KG Brücke was a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905. Founding members were Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Later members were Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein and Otto Mueller. The seminal group had a major impact on the evolution of modern art in the 20th century and the creation of expressionism. The group came to an end around 1913. The Brücke Museum in Berlin was named after the group.
Lovis Corinth was a German artist and writer whose mature work as a painter and printmaker realized a synthesis of impressionism and expressionism.
Color field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to abstract expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering abstract expressionists. Color field is characterized primarily by large fields of flat, solid color spread across or stained into the canvas creating areas of unbroken surface and a flat picture plane. The movement places less emphasis on gesture, brushstrokes and action in favor of an overall consistency of form and process. In color field painting "color is freed from objective context and becomes the subject in itself."
Neo-expressionism is a style of late modernist or early-postmodern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s. Neo-expressionists were sometimes called Transavantgarde, Junge Wilde or Neue Wilden. It is characterized by intense subjectivity and rough handling of materials.
Otto Müller was a German painter and printmaker of the Die Brücke expressionist movement.
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff was a German expressionist painter and printmaker; he was one of the four founders of the artist group Die Brücke.
Mont Sainte-Victoire is a 1904–1906 series of oil paintings by French artist Paul Cézanne.
The Zouave is the subject of several sketches and paintings made by Vincent van Gogh in Arles.
Omar Onsi (1901–1969) ; was a pioneer of modern painting in Lebanon and Lebanon's most renowned impressionist painter. He was born in Tallet Al-Khayat, Beirut in 1901. His father, Dr. Abdul Rahman El Ounsi, was a prominent general practitioner, had been one of the first Beirut Muslims to study modern Western medicine and his mother came from the prominent Sunni Muslim family Salam, who notably dressed in Western attire. He was named after his paternal grandfather, the scholarly poet, Omar, who was well known in Beirut.
Christian August Jorgensen was a Norwegian-born American landscape painter. Jorgensen is best known for his paintings of Yosemite Valley and the California Missions.
Landscape at Auvers in the Rain is an oil on canvas painting by the Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh.
Peter Howard Selz was a German-born American art historian and museum director and curator who specialized in German Expressionism.
Walter Hugo Ophey was a German painter and graphic designer, known for Rhenish Expressionism. He was a member of the Sonderbund group and Young Rhineland art groups.
Sunflowers is an oil on canvas painting by Danish German painter Emil Nolde, created in 1926. It was the first in a series of sunflower paintings, and also the first of more than fifty oil paintings on the same subject in Nolde's work. The sunflowers where a prominent motif among his flower paintings. The current painting has the dimensions of 72 by 90 cm, and is signed on the lower right edge of the canvas.
The Nolde Stiftung Seebüll, also known as Stiftung Seebüll Ada und Emil Nolde, in English, the Nolde Foundation Seebüll, or the Seebüll Ada and Emil Nolde Foundation, is a foundation established in 1956, who is the sponsor of an art museum in Seebüll, in Schleswig-Holstein, dedicated to the life and works of the German painter Emil Nolde. The museum was opened in 1957, after Nolde's death, by the Seebüll Ada and Emil Nolde Foundation.
The Life of Christ is a nine-part polyptych by the German Expressionist painter Emil Nolde, produced in 1911-1912. It is one of the main works of the artist's Christian inspired religious paintings. It is held at the Nolde Stiftung Seebüll.