Biography:
He was, without a doubt, one of the most prominent German expressionist painters, named Emil Hansen, better known as Emil Nolde, born on August 7, 1867.
And so it has happened as Nolde has become the pseudonym of this man who has started in the crafts as a carver and furniture designer, and with this knowledge he has come to teach ornamental design at the School of Industrial Arts of Sant Gall in Switzerland. Then, wanting to expand as an artist, to maintain his painting studies, he began to sell postcards of the Swiss mountains.
When the year 1899 arrived when he traveled to Paris where he frequented the Académie Julian, and there he studied the work of Rodin, Delacroix, Degas, Millet, Manet and Daumier, and it was in 1906 that Emil settled in Berlin where he met Schmidt -Rotluff, and begins to exhibit with the members of Die Brucke.
This artist has been influenced by such figures as Vincent van Gogh, Edvard Munch and James Ensor. It began when he traveled to New Guinea in 1913, and there he defined his taste for tribal art, which included tremendous distortions of forms, flat patterns and violent contrasts of color. That undoubtedly has changed his style somewhat, which was well defined. And from here on he devoted himself above all to landscapes and interior scenes with human figures. Among his landscapes is “Marzo”, a work created in 1916 at the Kunstmuseum, Basel, which is defined as disturbing and threatening.
Also among his works, Nolde has scenes with characters such as “El Juerguista”, a work created in 1919 in the State Gallery, which presents the human face as a grotesque mask revealing basic emotions. And later, he has been able to express himself and denote beautiful sensations in works such as the triptych “The life of Saint Mary the Egyptian” which deals with religious imagery and gives an expressionist treatment to the scenes of the New Testament.
When the year 1941 arrived, as has happened with several artists, he suffers the disgust caused by the Nazis, who declare him a degenerate artist and forbid him to paint, but beyond this fact, some time later Emil has produced an important number of watercolors. and expressionist prints, which have increased his reputation.
This artist has been the one who would use color applied in dense brushstrokes and would also abandon the traditional schemes of drawing, leading to the deformation of the human figure and caricature. With his style in 1926 he has been named doctor “honoris causa” by the University of Kiel. And he is also the one who generates great paintings, such as “The Last Supper” and “Pentecost”, bearers of figures with certain red and yellow lines that reduce the surrounding space to a minimum.