The longing for a pure and unadulterated nature defines Otto Mueller's painterly oeuvre. Following his apprenticeship as a lithographer and studies at the Dresden Art Academy, he returned to Dresden in 1899 after a brief interlude in Munich and remained until 1908. In the Saxon capital, he met Wilhelm Lehmbruck and Erich Heckel and joined the “Brücke” artist group in 1910. In 1919, Otto Mueller accepted a call to the Wroclaw Academy, where he taught until he died in 1930. His works display an unmistakable expressionist style, but his artistic roots can be traced back to Art Nouveau, which explains the emphasis on linear and decorative elements, which becomes particularly evident in his nude paintings. With his own stylistic means and a subtly balanced painting style, Mueller brought his vision of an Arcadian nature onto paper and canvas: his dreamy female nudes stand in landscapes that bear no traces of human civilization. He created a counterworld of paradisiacal serenity, in which the hustle and bustle of modern life had no place. His technique was just as visionary as his themes were backward-looking: Mueller worked with distemper paints on burlap and used his excellent drawing skills to anchor his motifs in space in a clear and simple way. He chose his painterly means sparingly but extremely effectively; the color scheme was restrained yet appropriate to the theme.
Mueller explored the theme of “nudes in the landscape” in various ways. He varied his depictions of naked bodies, staged vast landscapes by the sea or ponds, and brought individual sections of the landscape to life. He often used his partners or photographs of them as models, occasionally resorting to mannequins to realistically and precisely depict movement, posture, and proportions.
An excellent example of his mastery is the present work “Stehendes Mädchen vor Bäumen” (Girl Standing in Front of Trees), which counts among Otto Mueller’s most beautiful watercolors. He captured the familiar motif in an impressively fresh manner. The image section, chosen according to the Golden Ratio, lends the composition balance and an eminent presence. As early as 1919, Mueller wrote in an exhibition catalog for Galerie Cassirer in Berlin: “The main goal of my endeavors is to express the feeling of landscape and people with the greatest possible simplicity: the art of the ancient Egyptians was and still is my model, also in terms of pure craftsmanship” (quoted from: Eberhard Troeger, Otto Mueller, Freiburg i. Br. 1949, p. 18). [AW]