Emil Nolde Quotes

In the working of wood and for the determining of its character I had had enough experience in my five-year pursuit of woodcutting. I also always gladly let the various charming grainings and sometimes the knots become involved in the printing.

a written note of Nolde, 1903, on the island of Alsen; as quoted by , in Expressionism; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, p. 77

None of the free [ a.o. his first religious] imaginative pictures that I painted at this time [c.1909] or later, had any kind of model, or even a clearly conceived idea. It was quite easy for me to imagine a work right down to its smallest details, and in fact my preconceptions were usually far more beautiful than the painted outcome: I became the copyist of the idea. Therefore I liked to avoid thinking about a picture beforehand, all I needed was a vague idea of luminescences of colour. The work then developed of its own accord under my hands.

There is silver blue, sky blue and thunder blue. Every color holds within it a soul, which makes me happy or repels me, and which acts as a stimulus. To a person who has no art in him, colors are colors, tones tones.. ..and that is all. All their consequences for the human spirit, which range between heaven to hell, just go unnoticed.

You speak of errors.. .Men who are so correct and flawless are mostly boring; small weaknesses can be loved.. .One chief characteristic of the etchings gives me much pleasure: because out of them streams forth a tremendous life.

Dualism is particularly important in both my paintings and my graphics.

If I were tied to the letter of the Scriptures and rigid dogma, I believe I could not have painted these profoundly felt paintings about the Eucharist and the 'Pentecost' [religious paintings, he made c. 1909-11) I had to be artistically free - not have God before me. like a steely Assyrian ruler, but God in me, hot and holy like Christ's love.

Nobody had made the same full use of the properties of acids and metal in this way before. Having drown on the copper-plate and left areas of it bare, I laid it in the bath of acid and achieved effects that astonished even me, full of subtle nuances.

I want so much for my work to grow forth out of the material, just as in nature the plants grow forth out of the earth, which corresponds to their character. In the print 'Lebensfreude' [Joy of living] I worked for the most part with my finger, and the effect I hoped for was achieved. There is hidden in the print a bit of wantonness, in the representation as well as in the boldness of the technique. If I were to make the "ragged and moving" contours "correctly" in the academic sense, this effect would not nearly be achieved.

Yellow can paint happiness and also pain.. .Every color harbors its soul within, delighting or repelling and inspiring me.

Pictures are spiritual beings. The soul of the painter lives within them.

It was in mid-summer . The colors of the flowers attracted me irresistibly and almost sudden I was painting. My first small gardens paintings were born.

A new day. Calm as seldom the beginning of such a one. Did I dream? No! Dream and contented pure was the night.. .It is the sure certainty of having found unity with nature, this calm causes one of the strongest experiences.
Man, air, trees, world are laid bare and are one!
Contented sleep releases the limbs. We await full moon. Await the dance!

How glad I am to be almost alone as an artist among artists, with the whole swarm of artists somewhere else.

Since then, much has changed. We do not care for Raphael, and are less enthusiastic about the statues of the so-called golden age of Greece. Our predecessors’ ideals are not ours. Works signed by great names over the centuries appeal to us less. In the hurry and bustle of their times, worldly-wise artists created works for Popes and palaces. It is the ordinary people who laboured in their workshops and of whose lives scarcely anything is now known, whose very names have not come down to us, that we love and respect today in their plain, large-scale carvings in the cathedrals of Naumburg, Magdeburg and Bamberg.