Lot 67 Dα

The wet-in-wet technique used by Emil Nolde seems as if it had been made for this beautiful example of an animal watercolour. On the dampened absorbent paper, the thinned-down watercolours take on a life of their own whose streaks and diffuse contours are especially suited to the motif. In this way Nolde succeeds in using the fluidity of the paint to depict the bluish, silvery transparency of the water and the ripples and currents caused by the swimming motions of the fish. The golden yellow tone of the animals fades into the surrounding water in open, vibrating contours – just as a real view of a fish’s body under the surface of the water is to be recognised only in a distorted and disjointed form.
The work is dated to 1930 and the artist gave it to his wife as a charming Christmas greeting. In the winter of 1923/1924 Nolde had already created a number of watercolours featuring fish that he had been able to observe extensively in the aquarium at Berlin’s zoo. The refractions in the water and the lithe movements of the animals may have been particularly fascinating to him. In the work offered here, he has renounced every kind of accessory detail, such as plants, and has concentrated entirely on the contrast between the luminous yellow and the cool, reserved nuances of the water.