”Herbstwolken, Friesland“ (Autumn Clouds, Frisia). The view from the window of Nolde’s residence in Seebüll - and so much more than that. Nature, in this landscape painting, is elevated to a mystical level, colors and subject lead independent lives, forms become suggestive fields of power of human sensation. Gently floating contrasting color fields can be found in the lower part of the picture. Green marshland nestles up against the setting sun’s orange reflections on the water, while wild forces of nature rant on the sky: A bright orange glow, rendered in powerful brushstrokes, whirls above the deep, sulfur-yellow horizon that is heavy with rain, black-gray towering clouds side by side with glistening azure, creating a scene heavily charged with an abundance of associations. Is this not a reference to an approach to nature brought to life that has its art-historical roots in the late Middle Ages? Do the cloud formations not resemble two fire-spitting creatures? And is it not a possible interpretation to see their fight as an allegory to the uncertain days the world was in when the work was made? Some time between the bloody upheaval in Berlin in May 1929 (Blutmai) and the stock market crash commencing on Black Thursday in late October 1929? Whatever it is the observer believes to find in these forces of nature, the work is a direct confrontation with Emil Nolde’s mystical concept of nature: ”Everything primal captures my senses. The vast thundering sea still is in a primal state, the same applies to wind, sun, firmament, which are still the same as they used to be fifty thousand years ago.“ (Emil Nolde, Mein Leben, Cologne 2008, p. 225). A very distinguished collector also treasured Nolde‘s pictures of nature: Bernhard Sprengel. For the founding father of the Sprengel-Museum in Hannover, the opprobrious exhibition “Degenerate Art“ from 1937 meant nothing less than an awakening moment upon which he fell for Nolde‘s explosive landscapes. Under the most adverse conditions, and once again with true bravery, Sprengel compiled an outstanding collection. He saved many masterpieces by his friend and favorite painter Emil Nolde from falling victim to destruction through the National Socialists. “Herbstwolken, Friesland“ became part of his collection in 1941. The collector showed his deep appreciation for the art trader Franke, who helped Sprengel to obtain the work from the private ownership of the surgeon Carl Henes in a letter: “I am convinced that this picture will bring a lot of joy“ (December 18, 1941). Until the end of the war Sprengel had to hide “Herbstwolken, Friesland“, just like the other works in his collection, from the Nazis. But he was eventually able to show his treasures. “Herbstwolken, Friesland“ was soon on display at numerous exhibitions, among them such epochal international shows like the Venice Biennial in 1950, the first “documenta“ (1955) or “100 Years of German Painting“ at Tate Gallery London (1956) – stations of a liberated masterpiece.