Mädchen im Wald

The unity of humans and nature is the main subject of the German Expressionist painter Otto Mueller. Mueller is a member of the “Die Brücke (The Bridge)” artists’ group and his pictures attest to a life style in close touch with nature and as the idealized answer to industrialized urban life. While many of his contemporaries are involved with non-European, so-called “primitive” cultures, Otto Mueller travels to Bosnia, Hungary and Rumania. The Roma and Sinti way of life he encounters there corresponds to his notions of a pre-civilized idyll. The artist captures this closeness to nature and naturalness in numerous graphic works and paintings, thus creating an alternative to the traditional academic manner of painting nudes. The subject of the “Girl in a Wood”—on show here—sits naked on a rock looking out of the picture as shyly as a wild animal. Her body is inserted into this natural setting, her arms take up the movement of the adjoining trees, and her feet merge with the forest floor. Vegetative nature and human body appear to be as one. Mueller’s palette underlines this affinity. Whereas many Expressionists painted with exaggerated and subjective colours, Mueller generally remained realistic in his choice of colour. He painted his pictures in distemper on jute using an earthy and subdued palette. The contrast between the earthiness of nature and the scintillating blue background of the picture being shown here adds tension to the composition.