Lot 282 D

Ernst Wilhelm Nay is one of the most important representatives of abstract painting in post-war Germany. For him, abstraction was a logical consequence on the basis of which the artist - in Nay's own words - sought to give shape to that “complex of primordial forms in combination with rhythm and dynamism” in order to realise “the actual formal subject matter … as a whole” (E. W. Nay, Regesten zu Leben und Werk, 1958, cited in: E.W. Nay 1901-1968: Bilder und Dokumente, cat. German. Nationalmuseum Nuremberg 1980, p. 62). Nay worked in series from the very beginning. In a manner comparable to music, he developed and created variations on themes and melodies, intensified them to the level of a compositional drama, cultivated cadences and invented complexes of colour and form on whose sometimes raucous and dissonant sequences of tones he constructed harmonious concepts for works. Thus, the so-called “Frankreich Bilder” (1940-1945) were followed by the “Hekate Bilder” (1945-1948), and the “Fugale Bilder” (1949-1951) developed into the “Rhythmische Bilder” (1952-1953), which in turn slowly led to the preliminary stages of the “Scheibenbilder”. But things had not yet progressed so far: here, with this work, the artist has dissolved the rigour of a composition - the concentrations of colour and variations spreading across the canvas are still overlaid with a reminiscence of the structures from the period of the fugal paintings. Liberated from order, Nay has now opened up a free, unconstrained interplay of colours and lines. The title “Mit Tropfenketten” suggests order and points to representational worlds, providing viewers with an apparent sense of orientation through the discovery of the black “drips” lined up in chains, while simultaneously sending those viewers out into the realm of the incomprehensible. What we see is a rhythmically expressive structure made up of colours, forms, lines and black dots, those “chains of drips” which may still permit associations but nonetheless resist any classification as concrete things and have transformed themselves into an independent pictorial structure fixed on the plane and suggesting autonomous coloured forms. The colours are balanced out and integrated into a constructive principle, disconnected from material objectivity, emancipated from precise geometrical bonds. Nay addresses his viewers by way of the sound of bold chromatic chords; he provokes impressions of harmony and dissonance with his intuitive chromatic compositions which, depending on the coldness or warmth of their hues, can stimulate a feeling of complete equilibrium, endearing affection or perhaps even an attitude of rejection.