Lot 282 Dα

Still lifes like Josef Mangold's composition in the style of the New Objectivity are greatly admired as a decorative subject in the painting of the 1920s.
With a certain sobriety regarding his subject matter, the artist has depicted an unusual scene in a statically fixed composition. An almost smoothly painted surface leaves behind no traces and provides scarcely any possibility for its emotional structuring. On the contrary, the painter largely circumvents any development of the narrative in depth; only the view of the landscape partially opens up the hermetically sealed space. Outside we see a surreal landscape in clear tones of green and blue behind the glass vase - presented in a striking manner and forming the actual object of our gaze, it contains a light-pink tulip in slightly murky water and rests on the windowsill. Here Mangold, who exhibited with the “Rheinische Sezession” and the “Rheingruppe”, is citing an established visual topos from magnificent Renaissance portraits featuring a detailed view of a landscape that is typically related iconographically to the portrait's sitter. In this case the nude, who is reduced to a three-quarter figure in a modest pose and avoids even the slightest suggestion of individuation, brings the interior to life. Undressed and with her hair cut short in a current style, the young woman with an immaculate figure gazes 'stylishly' at an anemone-like flower in her hand. With a masterfully employed painting technique, Mangold reduces the narrative element for the sake of an stylised pictorial impression. Without drawing all too much attention to details, the graphic quality is emphasised - for example, by concentrating neighbouring tones while simultaneously rejecting the use of contours. The artist has used the silhouette-like quality of this scene to increase our focus on the metaphorical staging of a space that is suggestively symbolic. Nonetheless, this magically articulated passage remains pure invention, an illusion producing a dream-like effect.