Emil Nolde

Emil Nolde was a German painter. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke, and is considered to be one of the great watercolor painters of the 20th century.

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• Dualism is particularly important in both my paintings and my graphics.Years of Struggle 1902-14' Autobiography Berlin 1934
• Pictures are spiritual beings.The soul of the painter lives within them.Years of Struggle 1902-14' Autobiography Berlin 1934

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• My aim, a new evaluation of nature, with the infusion of personal soul and spirit.
  • Variant: My goal ... to transfom nature by infusing it with one's own mind and spirit.

• When inspiration took me I threw away my brushes, dipped an old paint rag into the paint and smeared around on the canvas in blissful intoxication.

• Art is exalted above religions and races. Not a single solitary soul these days believes in the religions of the Assyrians, the Egyptians, and the Greeks. And their races are exhausted, crossbred and spoiled. Only their art, whenever it was beautiful, stands proud and exalted, rising above all time. - 1911, quoted in Twentieth-Century Artists on Art