Lot 235 D

For Erich Heckel his summer sojourns at the waterside were an annual habit, as they were for other members of the Brücke group. The chance to work intensely outdoors in nature, to draw inspiration from the light and leisurely sense of life, had a decisive influence on his development as an artist. Up to 1910, Heckel had travelled on several occasions to Dangast, the following year to Prerow in the Darss region. In 1912, the year he made this watercolour, he explored the Baltic Sea coast with great dedication, spending time in Stralsund, on Hiddensee and with Ernst Ludwig Kirchner on Fehmarn. In addition to the images of nude bathers on the beach - a theme he realized in several paintings that year and which was to occupy him closely in subsequent years - he produced a few watercolours that were suffused by the clear, bright light of the summer days at the seaside.
In swift and vivacious brush work, he captures here a characteristic view of the rocky cliffs on Hiddensee. The expansive curving lines of the water's edge and the chalk cliffs, prepared with a light pencil drawing, form the key compositional framework; the figures of a few walkers on the beach sketched at great speed, and the lightly dabbed vegetation breathe more life into the scene and theme. However, the key part is played by the colour of the paints. Heckel concentrates on a very few fresh hues: a luminescent, intense blue, which he used to represent the sky, the water and the beach, too; a bright ocher and orange for the cliffs, and light green for the vegetation.