Lot 247 D

Ernst Wilhelm Nay's watercolours, gouaches and drawings do not just accompany his painted oeuvre, they reveal the artist's ideas on colour, form and composition - reflecting a very personal expression of the development of his artistic creations. And not only do they assert their identity as independent works relative to his paintings, Nay also uses his works on paper to individually elaborate upon phases in his oeuvre: they are at once reflection and new result.
The brushstroke is cautious and simultaneously defining: we should remember that every time a colour is placed on a watercolour sheet, it can be corrected only with difficulty, and the results remain visible on top of the chamois-toned paper. The sometimes casual drawing of the discs presents light-coloured paleness alongside boldly confident concentration: an endless interplay between figure and plane, an elision of form and its weight. Nay paints washes of blue over yellow on top of delicate, almost transparent blue and ochre tones and finally inserts power through the intensity of the pure blue. The artist reveals the effect and alteration of the blue colour above yellowish and slightly green discs in the midst of the longest-lasting phase in his work, the so-called “Scheibenbilder”.