Lot Essay
From 1969, Baselitz became preoccupied exclusively with the inversion of the image. This dramatic and original invention not only jogs the onlooker into a hightened comprehension of the work, it draws away from the predominance of the motif, traditionally of primary importance within figurative painting. Indeed Baselitz has said about his work in 1979, "The reality is the picture, it is most certainly not in the picture".
It is because of this dissolution of the importance of the motif that the onlooker is drawn towards the painterly values of the work. In this painting, Baselitz has used an open, loose, raw and exposed handling of paint. This is particularly evident in the torso of the woman for example, so that we read it just as much as a mass brushstroke as part of a woman's body.
With the inversion of the image, the blue doorway of the work, which is behind the figure, is also brought to the fore. Through colour and brushstroke, perspective is lost and the surface of the work is accentuated, giving this area an equal standing with that of the motif itself.
Die Frau in der Tür relates very closely to Baselitz's Strassenbild series, now in the Kunstmuseum in Bonn. Started in 1979 and finished in 1980 this is a series of eighteen panels each the same size and each containing a single fragmentary image of a woman suspended in space. The woman has again been placed and framed within a domestic environment - in this case she is by a window. Both Die Frau in der Tür and the Strassenbild series bare an allusion to La Rue, 1933, a work by the French artist, Balthus. In this work the figures are again arrested in movement, as in a photographic snapshot, and are alienated and detached from the world around them and from each other. As well as being literally separated through their being on different panels, as in Die Frau in der Tür, this element is again also created through the inversion of the image in Strassenbild, and in both works serves to distort the figure's form, volume and relationship to the world.
Both Die Frau in der Tür and Strassenbild show a stress on sculptural form in the painting of the figure, a preoccupation which by 1980 was to culminate in Baselitz's turn towards sculpture. In the top right hand panel of Strassenbild, the figure uses the same salute-like gesture as the figure in Die Frau in der Tür. This gesture appears in Baselitz's later sculptures and has been widely misconstrued as a Hitler salute. However, it serves to give Baselitz's sculpture a reinforced monumentality.
It is because of this dissolution of the importance of the motif that the onlooker is drawn towards the painterly values of the work. In this painting, Baselitz has used an open, loose, raw and exposed handling of paint. This is particularly evident in the torso of the woman for example, so that we read it just as much as a mass brushstroke as part of a woman's body.
With the inversion of the image, the blue doorway of the work, which is behind the figure, is also brought to the fore. Through colour and brushstroke, perspective is lost and the surface of the work is accentuated, giving this area an equal standing with that of the motif itself.
Die Frau in der Tür relates very closely to Baselitz's Strassenbild series, now in the Kunstmuseum in Bonn. Started in 1979 and finished in 1980 this is a series of eighteen panels each the same size and each containing a single fragmentary image of a woman suspended in space. The woman has again been placed and framed within a domestic environment - in this case she is by a window. Both Die Frau in der Tür and the Strassenbild series bare an allusion to La Rue, 1933, a work by the French artist, Balthus. In this work the figures are again arrested in movement, as in a photographic snapshot, and are alienated and detached from the world around them and from each other. As well as being literally separated through their being on different panels, as in Die Frau in der Tür, this element is again also created through the inversion of the image in Strassenbild, and in both works serves to distort the figure's form, volume and relationship to the world.
Both Die Frau in der Tür and Strassenbild show a stress on sculptural form in the painting of the figure, a preoccupation which by 1980 was to culminate in Baselitz's turn towards sculpture. In the top right hand panel of Strassenbild, the figure uses the same salute-like gesture as the figure in Die Frau in der Tür. This gesture appears in Baselitz's later sculptures and has been widely misconstrued as a Hitler salute. However, it serves to give Baselitz's sculpture a reinforced monumentality.