North German landscapes are a key motif in Emil Nolde's extensive oeuvre of drawings, watercolors and oil paintings. His relationship to National Socialism raises questions.
Emil Nolde was born Hans Emil Hansen on August 7, 1867 in the small village of Nolde near Tønder, the fourth son of five children in a farming family. No artistic talents or ambitions can be identified in the family environment. Little Emil admires his mother, who is imaginative and sensitive. For example, she lovingly designs the flower garden.
Emil Nolde:Bad student, but talented in drawing
As a child, Emil Nolde attended the one-class elementary school. There, the teachers noticed his talent for drawing, but as a student Nolde was less brilliant. At Christmas 1875, his great wish is fulfilled:the eight-year-old is given a paint box. Now he no longer has to make do with his own colors made from beetroot and elderberry juice.
Nolde is self-taught. He tries out many things early on:he paints stable doors, farmer's carts and small clay figures. The father prevents the son from becoming an artist. After finishing school at the age of 16, he worked for a year on his parents' farm in agriculture. Then father and son find a compromise:Emil Nolde can be trained in an artistic craft.
Nolde carves owls for Theodor Storm's desk
From 1884 to 1888 he completed an apprenticeship as a carver in the Sauermann furniture factory in Flensburg. As an apprentice, he was also allowed to carve the missing halberds and swords of the soldiers during the restoration of the famous Brüggemann altar in Schleswig Cathedral. One of his last works in Flensburg are four owls for a desk commissioned by Theodor Storm.
The charm of landscapes inspires Nolde's first paintings
He worked as a skilled worker in Munich, Karlsruhe and Berlin before becoming a trades teacher in St. Gallen in 1892. His first hesitant attempts at painting are mountain motifs, which come onto the market as postcards and bring him surprisingly 25,000 francs. The way is clear for studying, for own work in the Berlin studio or later on at his farm in Seebüll. After a six-year stay in Switzerland, he gives up his secure existence.
Nolde's beginnings are cautious. The pictures, which are rooted in Impressionism, show flowers, pieces of garden, landscapes and the sea. The theme "Autumn Sea" alone is varied 17 times. These are key motifs to which Nolde still returns years later. The colors just become more intense, glaring, glowing.
Nolde meets the actress Ada Vilstrup
In 1900 he returned north, to Copenhagen. He lives in a small room and feels completely lost in the big city until he meets actress and musician Ada Vilstrup. This marks the end of his "preparatory lifetime", as he himself puts it. A sign of this may be that he discarded the name Hansen after the marriage and replaced it with Nolde.
Emil Nolde and his wife Ada:In 1926 the two bought a farm near Seebüll. The Nolde Museum is located there today.Ada and Emil Nolde buy a fisherman's house on the Baltic Sea island of Alsen, which is now part of Denmark. They spend the winters in a studio in Berlin. From 1909 they come to the rougher west coast during the summer months. After a serious illness, Emil Nolde painted the famous oil paintings "The Last Supper" and "Pentecost".
In 1903 and 1904, Ada and Emil Nolde traveled to East Asia. The impressive colors of the landscapes leave clear traces in the artist's work. From 1906 to 1907 he was briefly a member of the artist group "Brücke". In 1926 Emil Nolde finally bought the farm in Seebüll near Niebüll.
Contradictory relationship to National Socialism
For a long time, Emil Nolde was considered a prominent "degenerate artist". However, more recent findings from the Nolde estate in Seebüll paint a different picture of the artist. This is not only evident, but also in his paintings:after 1933 he did not paint any religious motifs with Jewish, biblical figures. Instead, Nolde brings heroic figures with blond hair and blue eyes, sacrificial sites, castles and dramatic skies over landscapes to the canvas. The blood and soil ideology thus finds its way into Nolde's paintings.
Nolde is anything but a persecuted artist who has to hide his paintings. Many of his paintings disappear from museums after 1937, and 1,052 are confiscated. In this respect, Nolde can be seen as a victim of Nazi art policy. However, he is also an anti-Semite and a racist. Nolde's second volume of memoirs, "Years of Fighting", which was published in 1934, testifies to this. He made no secret of his sympathy for the National Socialists, and in 1934 Nolde joined the NSDAP. And he doesn't shy away from denunciations himself. He wrongly branded his colleague Max Beckmann as a Jew. Despite all the dangers involved in making such a claim, Nolde does not admit his error.
The painter is always loyal to the Nazi state
In 1941 Nolde was expelled from the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts. He is banned from exhibiting, selling and publishing. However, there is never a "painting ban" against him, even if he always claims this. Despite Nolde's loyalty to the Nazi state, his wife Ada is appalled at her husband's ostracism. In 1942 she wrote in a letter to friends:"The most German, Germanic, most loyal artist is excluded."
The "Nolde myth" was clarified late
However, Nolde was not shaken by the exclusion from the Reich Chamber, he remained loyal to the party. He did not lose his faith in the Nazi regime until the end of the war. In the post-war years, Nolde himself was perceived by the public as a persecuted artist of a new German art - and as a victim of Nazi art policy. It was only many years later - in 2019 in an exhibition in Berlin - that the "Nolde myth" was clarified. As a result, Angela Merkel herself removed two of the artist's pictures from the Chancellery.
Remarkable late work in old age
Despite his membership in the NSDAP, the denazification committee in Kiel exonerated him in August 1946. On his 79th birthday, Nolde was awarded an honorary professorship. In November of the same year his wife Ada died. On the occasion of his 80th birthday there are some big exhibitions. From many of the small unpainted pictures from the years 1939 to 1945 an impressive late work of large paintings was created. At 81 he married 26-year-old Jolanthe Erdmann, the daughter of a composer and pianist friend. The painter died in Seebüll on April 13, 1956.
The relationship with Ada, the relationship of his life, lives on in Haus Seebüll, the headquarters of the Ada and Emil Nolde Foundation:the two share a resting place there in a beautifully landscaped garden. This garden has always been an affair of the heart for them.