art I’d exhibit: Emil Nolde’s watercolors
Travelling 300 miles to see a particular temporary exhibition has never been a problem to me. What I adore most about those journeys is that I never know when I will fall in love instantly with a piece of art I’ve never seen, artist I used to dislike, or simply a pretty typographic design of artwork’s description (the latter is the case of Giovanni Battista Moroni’s exhibition I’ve seen earlier this year at the Royal Academy of Arts in London).
My relationship with Emil Nolde developed slowly, but with a sudden twist of action. However German expressionism has never been my favourite art movement, I am fond of some witty and racy little pieces such as postcards and notes that Der Blaue Raiter group’s members exchanged among each other. Well, take a look:
It’s not quite a surprise that the city which made me fall in love with little beauties like the one above — and, eventually, also with Emil Nolde — was Vienna. It was there that I saw stunning exhibitions Der Blaue Raiter. From the Lenbachhaus and the Albertina (4/02/2011— 29/05/2011) at Albertina, and Emil Nolde — In Radiance and Colour (25/10/2013—02/02/2014) at Lower Belvedere.
When I entered the first room of Nolde’s exhibition, I was slightly dissapointed. “Well, it seems that I’ll never get to like his paintings at all”,
I thought. Huge flowers, rosy or even beetroot-like faces. Not my cup of tea. I went through the following rooms scarcely looking at the pictures until something unexpected happened…
There they were, hanging in rows. Tiny, bursting with colour and light, full of tone matches I would never even think of. I was standing there, gasping, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Nolde stole my heart with his watercolours painted while he was prohibited from creating by Adolf Hitler (yep, watercolours weren’t considered proper art back at that time).
However most of these watercolours are landscapes — views of mountain ranges, stormy sea, tiny houses nestled between meadowy hills—some of them look almost abstract and foreshadow Rothko’s colour field painting. Doesn’t it cry for an exhibition? Picture it yourself: deep velvety anthracite painted walls. Spotlights literally cutting the watercolours out of frames. And somewhere further, but within the eyeshot, Mark Rothko’s No. 14 lurking in the darkness:
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That’s why (and how) I’d exhibit Emil Nolde, if life gave me the chance to do it. And I truly believe it will, one day.
