Seated Nude c. 1920

Heinrich Campendonk made this painting, called Seated Nude, with oil on canvas. Campendonk was associated with the German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter, or The Blue Rider, active in the years before the First World War. This was a time of enormous social change in Germany and throughout Europe, and the group was known for its interest in spirituality and its rejection of academic artistic conventions. Looking at the painting, we can see that Campendonk has distorted and simplified the human figure. The colors are unnaturalistic and the background is flat and abstract. It has a dreamlike quality. These choices reflect the Expressionists’ concern with inner feelings and subjective experience. We might consider how Campendonk and his peers were responding to the rapid modernization and industrialization of German society. Art historians can examine the archives of the group to understand how it positioned itself against the established institutions of the art world. The study of cultural history helps us appreciate that this artwork is very much a product of its time.