Lot 163 D

In this important early work by Ernst Wilhelm Nay, a form of artistic insight appears which arrives at a relatively clear expression - even before his key experience of the landscape of Norway's Lofoten islands. It occupies a preliminary and highly interesting stage on the way to his further development. Elisabeth Nay-Scheibler has spoken simply and aptly of the “mysterious and intuitive process of his work as a painter” (see E.W. Nay, Lesebuch, Selbstzeugnisse und Schriften 1931-1968, Cologne 2002, Einführung, p. 6). In the present composition, we undoubtedly recognise elements of erotic symbolism that superficially appear to be presented in a Surrealist manner. However, the bisected pictorial formula achieved here actually points concisely to the problem of form and expression with which Nay wrestled as an individual and artist. This inner struggle was a search for the original sources, the primal foundations of life as well as of the artist's work:
“The idea on which my art is founded is simultaneously my core, the law of my life as a whole: the mythical bond which I spoke about for the first time what is now seven years ago. This is to be understood as humanity's primeval bond with the earth and sky; earth and sky are forms of the eternal movement, the becoming and declining of eternity. This is, after all, not a programme, not a theory or a religious notion, more a vision. Beyond the Romantic connection to the ego, beyond mysticism's religious connection to the id, the mythical realm opens up - where the primal law of life is reality in a bright, cool clarity. This reality is the significance of my creation of form.” (E.W. Nay to Carl Hagemann, 1937, in: E.W. Nay, Lesebuch, op. cit., p. 16).