.jpg?w=1)
拍品專文
Haff was painted by Pechstein during his first stay in Nidden, in the summer of 1909. The fishing village of Nidden is situated at the extreme eastern end of the Baltic in what was known as East Prussia. 'It stands on the Kurische Nehrung, a long narrow spit of land dividing the sea from a shallow lagoon, the Haff. With its simple fisherfolk, its rolling sand-dunes and forests of pine and fir inhabited by elk and deer, from the late nineteenth century onwards it became a place of pilgrimage for artists, initially the painters of the Königsberg Academy, subsequently visitors from further afield, who found in this remote environment an unspoiled landscape and picturesque subjects to depict. They also saw in the continual struggle for survival waged by the primitive fishing community an image of the unity of man and nature, untouched by 'progress', the dubious benefits of civilization' (P. Vergo, The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection. Twentieth-century German painting, London, p. 326).
Pechstein was certainly inspired to visit the area by the works of Eduard Bischoff-Culm that were exhibited at the Berlin Secession. He made his first journey to the village in the summer of 1909 and from that first visit Nidden represented a lost paradise, a sort of Utopia untouched by the corruption of modern civilization. 'In his autobiography, [Pechstein] described the difficulty of his journey from Berlin via Königsberg (now Kaliningrad), eventually reaching his destination by fishing smack. In his mind, Nidden, because of its remoteness and primitive way of life, played a role perhaps similar to that which Brittany fulfilled for Gauguin - just as one might compare Pechstein's trip to the South Seas in 1913-14 with the French artist's visits to Martinique and to Tahiti during the last years of the nineteenth century' (ibidem, p. 326).
In 1909, Pechstein's style was still profoundly tied to Fauvism, both on a formal and chromatic level. Pechstein had developed a very strong relationship with the protagonists of the fauve revolution in the course of his nine months in Paris, between December 1907 and August 1908. Haff is a very good example of Pechstein's deep fascination with the experiments of the Parisian avant-garde: the coastal cliff is depicted with a very steep aerial perspective typical of Derain's extraordinary oils of Collioure (see fig. 2), and the colours are completely saturated, almost surreal for a Northern seascape. The exhilarating transparency of the light has, indeed, a Mediterranean quality: it is Collioure's 'lumière blonde, dorée, qui supprime les ombres' about which Derain wrote enthusiastically to Vlaminck (Derain to Vlaminck, mid-July 1905, Collioure). Pechstein has captured the Baltic coast with the exuberance of French colours, and restricted his palette to Derain's yellows and blues, enhanced by quick brushstrokes of red and pink. He used Derain's mosaic-like stroke to suggest the dry, harsh character of the Northern vegetation on the cliff, and the powerful colourist vocabulary of his French predecessors to render the shimmering quality of the water. The horizon becomes a thin, flickering, pink line, and the sky is punctuated by dots of rose impasto - Pechstein's ultimate homage to his illustrious French Fauve contemporaries.
Max K. Pechstein has kindly confirmed the authenticity of this work.
Pechstein was certainly inspired to visit the area by the works of Eduard Bischoff-Culm that were exhibited at the Berlin Secession. He made his first journey to the village in the summer of 1909 and from that first visit Nidden represented a lost paradise, a sort of Utopia untouched by the corruption of modern civilization. 'In his autobiography, [Pechstein] described the difficulty of his journey from Berlin via Königsberg (now Kaliningrad), eventually reaching his destination by fishing smack. In his mind, Nidden, because of its remoteness and primitive way of life, played a role perhaps similar to that which Brittany fulfilled for Gauguin - just as one might compare Pechstein's trip to the South Seas in 1913-14 with the French artist's visits to Martinique and to Tahiti during the last years of the nineteenth century' (ibidem, p. 326).
In 1909, Pechstein's style was still profoundly tied to Fauvism, both on a formal and chromatic level. Pechstein had developed a very strong relationship with the protagonists of the fauve revolution in the course of his nine months in Paris, between December 1907 and August 1908. Haff is a very good example of Pechstein's deep fascination with the experiments of the Parisian avant-garde: the coastal cliff is depicted with a very steep aerial perspective typical of Derain's extraordinary oils of Collioure (see fig. 2), and the colours are completely saturated, almost surreal for a Northern seascape. The exhilarating transparency of the light has, indeed, a Mediterranean quality: it is Collioure's 'lumière blonde, dorée, qui supprime les ombres' about which Derain wrote enthusiastically to Vlaminck (Derain to Vlaminck, mid-July 1905, Collioure). Pechstein has captured the Baltic coast with the exuberance of French colours, and restricted his palette to Derain's yellows and blues, enhanced by quick brushstrokes of red and pink. He used Derain's mosaic-like stroke to suggest the dry, harsh character of the Northern vegetation on the cliff, and the powerful colourist vocabulary of his French predecessors to render the shimmering quality of the water. The horizon becomes a thin, flickering, pink line, and the sky is punctuated by dots of rose impasto - Pechstein's ultimate homage to his illustrious French Fauve contemporaries.
Max K. Pechstein has kindly confirmed the authenticity of this work.