Lot 303 Dα

Gustav Vriesen has very vividly described how the artist - delighted with France, but nonetheless tired of the city - left Paris with his young wife in October of 1909, in order to take up the invitation of his friend, the writer Wilhelm Schmidtbonn, and travel to the Tegernsee. There Macke's general feelings about life changed, particularly in the form of a deeply felt sensibility for the nature surrounding him. His new view of the world and reality lastingly influenced his work of the richly productive year that followed. The birth of his son came in that period - a fresh experience of familiar domesticity - but also his meeting with Franz Marc and a more intensive occupation with the work of Henri Matisse. Vriesen summarises that “Macke felt a new closeness to the elemental”, and on 7 March 1910 Macke wrote his famous lines in a letter to Hans Thuar: “I am now terribly at work. That means that, with me, working is a complete enjoying of nature, the glow of the sun and the trees, shrubs, people, animals, flowers and pots, tables, chairs, mountains and water of the becoming illuminated.” In the summer of that year, on 24 July 1910, he enthusiastically wrote: “I paint, paint, paint and am delighted from the depths of my heart when my gaze, together with the light, dives down into the darkness of the woods or quivers across the fields and finally dreams about the clouds in the distance. Day after day, experiencing new happiness, new joys. I now want to make use of the days as much as possible.” (cited in Vriesen, Stuttgart 1957, op. cit., pp. 47/48, 60)
“Pflänzchen im Wald” stirs a sense of German Romanticism and perhaps also - with a refined humour - the typical diminutive forms of German fairy tales. In terms of the motif there are links to early ex libris designs for Schmidtbonn (see comparative ill.). As Ursula Heiderich explains with regard to the painting, the sprouting plant appears in Macke's work as the ultimate symbol for vitality. Macke was reading avidly at that time, including Schopenhauer. In “The World as Will and Representation” the “force of truth” is mentioned: it is said that it is “unbelievably strong and makes a lasting impact” and resembles “a plant that sprouts under a pile of large stones, but still keeps growing towards the light.” (cited in U. Heiderich, August Macke Gemälde, Ostfildern 2008, p. 360)
The painting's closed, semi-abstract composition shows a deep cavity in the ground; its edge casts a shadow on the soil that has broken away from the forest floor. In the isolated patches of sunlight, the vegetation sprouts and shoots towards the light. Stylistically Macke has combined a post-impressionist, dashed application of paint in the work's ground with a remarkably decorative, summary and two-dimensional depiction of the plants' revealingly enlarged foliage. These forms and contrasts as well as the use of the bold green among a finely varied palette of reddish and bluish violet tones and yellow-orange colours may recall to mind that Macke was thoroughly occupied with Fauvism at that time and, above all, with the optical effect of pure colours and colour planes.