Nolde's “Vera” - Mysterious symbol of exotic femininity
The full-length heads Nolde painted in Berlin at the beginning of 1919 are enigmatic, mystical, and sensual. This small but top-class group of works, one of the highlights of Expressionist portrait art, consists of only nine paintings. In the spirit of Expressionism, Nolde was no longer concerned with a naturalistic likeness in the true sense of a portrait. Instead, he focused on capturing his sitters' personalities and the subtle nuances of femininity. This was also the case when, as so often, he explored the theme of " Mann und Weib" ("Man and Woman", 1919, Urban 794) or depicted the relationship between " Fürst und Geliebte" (Prince and his Lover, 1918; Urban 797), while his interest in archaic and sensual themes also resonated. Emil Nolde finally painted these mysterious heads, nine in number, among them "Vera", in early 1919. She faces Nolde head-on. Her bright blue eyes are open; her soft facial features hint at a slight smile. Her mouth is painted a fiery red and slightly open; the artist accentuates her cheeks with a round blush, and her thick black hair falls behind her shoulders, creating a sharp contrast to the midnight blue of the surrounding space. In the immediacy of expression, Nolde painted his subject unfiltered and full of empathy. The person is - one can assume - wearing festive clothes, as Nolde sketched an uncovered, slender neck, just as the sculptor once formed the noble head and flat neck of the Egyptian Nefertiti and adorned the cleavage with a golden necklace with a row of beads of different sizes.

Nolde regarded his color palette as his most vital means of expression, as the actual medium of his artistic identity. It is not only the flower paintings that burst with colors, the atmospheric landscapes of mudflats and seascapes, and the charged biblical and mythical scenes. Above all, it is the portraits in which Nolde incorporated his idea of nativeness, as is the case here in the physiognomy's open directness and elementary simplicity. The intense gaze of "Vera" touched the artist as much then as it touches us today. The duality of life is elementary for Nolde, which, in his own words, “always occupied a generous place in my paintings [..]. Together or against one another: man and woman, pleasure and pain, god and the devil" (quoted from: Emil Nolde: Porträts, exhib. cat., Ulm 2005, p. 76). Furthermore, as usual, Emil Nolde wrote the title of his painting directly on the back of the canvas or, usually with a brush dipped in black, on one side of the stretcher.



Nolde and the mysterious identity of the sitters
Apart from the note on the stretcher, we have no knowledge of the true identity of the sitter. At least Nolde gave names to the portraits from early 1919: “Nadja” (Urban 830, ill. 3), “Vera” (Urban 831, ill. 2), “Marie” (Urban 832), “Ingeborg” (Urban 835), but also “Italienerin” (Urban 834), “Rothaariges Mädchen” (Urban 836), “Rotblondes Mädchen” (Urban 864, fig. 1)
So, who exactly is "Vera"? First, the striking resemblance to "Nadja" is undeniable! Apart from Nolde's list of works from 1930, the basis and starting point for Urban's catalogue raisonné lists both portraits in a row. “Vera” is ‘Nadja’ and ‘Nadja’ is ‘Vera’? Even though Nolde explicitly noted both names on the respective stretcher frames, the identities of both remain uncertain.
According to Manfred Reuther, the long-standing director of the Seebüll Ada and Emil Nolde Foundation, this fascinating small group of paintings was created in early 1919 in the Noldes' winter residence, their Berlin studio on Tauentzien. The Noldes probably set off for Denmark in mid-January to visit Ada's family, and they had official permission to stay there until February 20. This trip to Denmark touched the artist and his wife, Ada, as they resumed their visits to the family after a long pause. "Ada's siblings in Kjellerup, Kolding, and Copenhagen had almost become estranged from us in life and thought during the war. The reunion was beautiful. [..] Painting was my better self, I painted again. I painted small pictures of children and the beautiful sisters-in-law and also of the magical powers, the fairy teller”, stated Emil Nolde happily about his artistic deeds (quoted from: Emil Nolde, Mein Leben, Cologne 1993, p. 330). It can be inferred from these lines that “Ada's siblings” may also have inspired Nolde's portraits. Moreover, Ada had nine siblings and a further five half-siblings! Nadja and Vera are not among them.



Nolde's “Vera” - a masterpiece of expressionist portraiture
Nolde's artistic language is full of subtle sentiment, and his expression is passionately heightened to the point of apparent archaic stylization. The differentiated nature of his subjects and their impressive typification is a particular quality of his painting. Nolde's life between the big city of Berlin and the countryside in the north, his travels in the immediate vicinity, and his South Sea excursion to distant Papua New Guinea provided the artist with inspiring models for his sometimes bizarre physiognomies. Exotic masks and folk art objects, which Nolde discovered and sketched in ethnological collections, also provided crucial inspiration for depictions of the feminine with an exotic air. In the history of modernist portraiture, the stylized exotic element always gains importance when the individual needs additional characteristic elegance. The face of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's model "Fränzi", for example, is painted in bright green and in a similar frontal position, and Max Beckmann lent his "Egyptian Woman" an equally archaic degree of mysterious beauty as did Nolde with his "Vera" and her fascinating space-filling aura.
In “Vera”, Emil Nolde thus de-individualizes his subject and immediately breaks with the convention of the portrait in a typically unorthodox way of seeing and painting. Nolde created a personal portrait with all his artistic experience and mastery. His portraits testify to an intensive examination, a personal dialog between painter and model, and a unique synthesis of what he saw, experienced, and felt. "Vera" is a profound masterpiece, a mysterious depiction of the feminine, a powerful yet timeless representation of beauty and sensuality. Once viewed, the appearance of this iconic portrait remains unforgettable in the sensitive perception. Today, the viewer still sees "Vera" through the eyes and sensations of Emil Nolde and thus takes the painter's place upon entering into an intense and captivating dialog with this expressionist masterpiece. [MvL/JS]