The female nude—and, in particular, the motif of the female nude set in a landscape, a traditional theme in art history —is a dominant motif in the oeuvre of Otto Mueller. Similar to his fellow painters in the “Brücke” group, to which he belonged from 1910 until it disbanded in 1913, Otto Mueller sought, both in his life and in his art, the greatest possible authenticity and a harmonious unity of man and nature.
In this sense, Mueller placed his de-individualized figures in a seemingly untouched, paradisiacal setting, far removed from modern life, unaffected by social upheaval and industrialization, without any reference points to contemporary life. Unlike Kirchner or Heckel, Otto Mueller did not depict immediate, spontaneously captured scenes from daily life, but rather carefully staged, balanced compositions.
In some cases, Mueller’s models were his partners; at other times, he used photographs or even a mannequin to depict as many different variations of movement, posture, and proportion as possible.
With great graphic sophistication, a few bold lines, and delicate yet effective contrasts, Otto Mueller brings his figures to life on the sheet, rendered clearly, and through the atmospheric interplay of watercolor and colored chalk. It is not individual female figures that he depicts, but a universal form of femininity and humaneness, of primal nature and dreamy ambiance, in a typification reminiscent of Oskar Schlemmer’s male figures or even Alexej von Jawlensky’s abstract heads. The double-figure depictions occupy a special place within this theme: like the individual nudes, they remain introverted, without any contact between them, rejecting any interaction and solely focused on themselves. This creates a captivating tension between the figures, evident in the particularly balanced composition presented here. [CH]