Lot 215 R

Nolde loved flowers and, at each of his homes, he created a garden of his own. When the artist and his wife settled in their house on the mound at Seebüll, rendering the surrounding grassland arable was one of Nolde's most pressing wishes. In the 1930s he had the opulent garden laid out according to his own designs, and it still exists today with its highly diverse plants; the garden achieved extraordinary fame through the many flower paintings and watercolours created there until Nolde's death in 1956.
Taking visible pleasure in the colours and textures, the artist also depicts the summerly abundance of his flower garden in this late watercolour. The large, feathery poppy blossoms seem to hover in the middle of the pictorial space, and they define the basic tone of the composition. With their strong green and blue tones, the stamens stand out against the violet-red petals. Yellow black-eyed Susans with dark stems and small, orange-coloured buttercups provide for light accents alongside the poppies. The composition is balanced through the dark and light green leaves and stems in the area at the lower right; in the vigorous and opaque application of the paint, they also form a material antipode to the almost translucent delicacy of the blossoms.
Because the background is largely light and its effect defined by the natural qualities of the paper, the flowers are able to completely unfold their radiance. The gentle grey tones in the area at the top and the violet tints at the bottom further emphasise their intensive colour.