100 / 101 U »Ungemalte« – und gemalte – Wikinger SÖREN GROSS The “time of these old heroes” is what Emil Nolde calls that world of legends, myths and fairy tales, which he often viewed in the course of his creative work for the inspiration of free figure paintings with Vikings and other legendary people.1 With about 100 works particularly extensive, this complex of motifs found expression in the so-called “unpainted pictures”, the more than 1300 small-format watercolours of the 1930 & 1940s. Only a few of them were titled by Nolde himself; strictly speaking, only “Gaut the Red” (fig. 2) and “Veterans” indicate Vikings, while titles such as Three Old Vikings (cat. no. 32) are descriptive designations from the early days of the Nolde Foundation. Essential design features of Nolde’s Vikings are evident in “Gaut the Red”: they are predominantly male figures, mostly depicted bearded and with longer hair, and distinguished by bonnets, caps, or helmets. In contrast to the youthful faces of “Gaut the Red”, Old Man and Young Woman (cat. no. 33) toys with the duality of young and old in the context of the saga figures. Even more substantial than the robes, the weapons and helmets in Three Vikings (fig. 3) appear as details depicting a warlike element. Mistress and Stranger (fig. 1) stands exemplary for scenic pictorial inventions that arrange two or three persons in front of a group of lance-bearing warriors. Representations of kings (cat. no. 30, 31, 36), to whom Nolde painted decorated textiles, weapons and crowns or diadems, can also be assigned to the realm of myth. The sheet Viking with Dragon’s Staff (cat. no. 35) seems to be particularly stereotypical. The titular attribute refers to an archaeological find from which Nolde kept a pictorial section in his collection of templates.2 “ U n p a i n t e d ” — a n d p a i n t e d —V i k i n g s Abb. 1 Herrin und Fremdling / ca. 1938 Die »Zeit dieser alten Helden« nennt Emil Nolde jene Welt der Sagen, Mythen und Märchen, die er im Laufe seines Schaffens oft zur Inspiration freier Figurenbilder mit Wikingern und anderen sagenhaften Menschen betrachtet hat.1 Mit etwa 100 Werken besonders umfangreich schlug sich dieser Motivkomplex in den sogenannten Ungemalten Bildern, den mehr als 1 300 kleinformatigen Aquarellen der 1930er-/ 1940er-Jahre, nieder.
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