Lot 51 Dα

“That part of reality which is full of expression - I bring it out, I depict it simply, without digression, without trimmings. Thus the completeness of the natural appearance remains disregarded, the forms gather within contours, the colours into shapes: what emerges are outlines of the world, pictures,” writes Gabriele Münter an undated manuscript (cited in: Exh. cat. Gabriele Münter. Malen ohne Umschweife. Lenbachhaus Munich/Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek/Museum Ludwig, Cologne 2018/2019).
In 1902 Gabriele Münter attended various courses at the Phalanx school of painting in Munich, including Wassily Kandinsky's painting class. She completed her first oil paintings in this period and practised the palette-knife technique, which was also important for Kandinsky's work at that time and whose clearly accentuated application of the paint is plainly recognisable in the work offered here.
The present picture is one of Münter's earliest landscapes - a subject that would define her entire oeuvre. The artist found inspiration for her nuanced depictions of the surrounding landscape during her travels or in her adopted home of Munich and its countryside. These works demonstrate Münter's fine sense for the different characteristics, atmospheres and states of the spaces around her - she captured them on canvas with an unmediated directness, as “outlines of the world”.