Lot 40 N

With irises, coneflowers and asters, Emil Nolde has united three types of flowers with very different characteristics in this enchanting still life. Their cool tones of blue, light purple and red come together to form a harmonious triad, accentuated through their luminously yellow stamens.
Nolde’s unrivalled watercolour technique brings out the natural luminosity of the blooms in an extraordinary brilliance and depth. The special quality of his floral still lifes derives from the naturalness with which he depicts the plants – in contrast to the deliberate arrangements that are usually typical of other still lifes. Nolde wished to capture the beauty and colouristic power of the blooms just as he found them in his famous garden in Seebüll. This luxuriantly planted sanctuary laid out in the style of a farmer’s garden and set in the midst of the expansive grasslands of North Frisia offered the artist an inexhaustible source of inspiration for decades; with great passion, he repeatedly immortalised its flowers in the astonishing colours of new compositions.