The Animal Lover (Der Tierfreund) 1918

Curator: Today we're looking at "The Animal Lover" or "Der Tierfreund" by Emil Nolde, created in 1918. Editor: My immediate impression is that it's… oddly peaceful. Even though the lines are scratchy and the figure feels a bit strange, there's a gentleness to it, especially with the bird. Curator: That gentleness is key, I think, and sits in contrast to the context of Nolde’s politics. He was later embraced by the Nazi regime, even though his work was eventually labeled as "degenerate" by them. It’s troubling, isn't it? Editor: The technique is quite stark. The composition utilizes sharp, etching-like strokes, and creates contrast with flat planes—emphasizing form through these rather angular intersections. It adds a graphic sensibility. Curator: Consider the figures themselves, though. Nolde was intensely interested in representing figures that blurred lines of social acceptance, partly tied to his fascination with what he considered to be the primitive, a fascination loaded with imperial undertones and white savior complex. This figure is hard to pin down to any class. Editor: Right. There is an ambiguity in how he is rendering space; we have the figure very clearly in the foreground and then this almost naive approach to perspective in the background. Semiotically, it feels like a separation. Curator: Exactly! A separation that speaks to the artifice of categorization. Even as we interpret Nolde’s artistic language, it's essential to challenge the troubling colonial narratives he, and many other Expressionists, perpetuated through their art. The image evokes an innocence, yet it reminds us of these layered historical complexities. Editor: The tension it holds between the apparent and the deeply unsettling leaves me feeling more than a little ambivalent, to be honest. It asks more questions than it provides answers.