Artistic Agency

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The Mulatto by Emil Nolde is an oil painting. Oil painting as a genre is unique in that despite many developments in technology over the past centuries, the fundamentals of the style have remained the same. It is the process of painting with pigments bound with a medium of drying oil. It has been the principal form of painting since the 15^th century, and by the height of the Renaissance, it almost completely replaced tempera paintings. (Del Serra)

The artist starts by sketching the subject onto the canvas, and then mixes the pigments with oil and ingredients to control the drying time of the paint. (Izzo) Traditionally artists bought their canvases from markets, but mixed their own paints from raw pigments. The artist most often uses a brush to apply the paint, but other tools were used as well, such as palette knives, rags, and many other creative objects, especially in modern art. The Mulatto was painted using a big paintbrush, as the thick brushstrokes are obvious. Most artists paint in multiple layers to achieve varying hues of the same color and recreate light effects. This was the case for The Mulatto as well, since the different layers of paint are discernible.

Although I have been unable to find any specific information about The Mulatto, it is safe to assume that Nolde was the only person involved in its creation. A very important step in his artistic creation was the sketch. He used to go to bars with his drawing pad and sketch his observations, which he would then use as a starting point for his paintings. He sketched “the lighting in the rooms, the tinsel façade, the people, all of them, good or bad, the occasional inhabitants of this demimonde or the completely decadent… this dark side of life with its make-up, with its slimy dirt and its corruption.” (Nolde, 137) The inspiration for The Mulatto must have been one of these sketches, since the description fits the visuals of this painting.

A Palette (image source: wikimedia.org)

Sources:

“20^th Century Art.” Boston Museum Bulletin. Vol. 68, No. 351/352, Centennial Acquisitions: Art Treasures for Tomorrow (1970), pp. 125-170

Benson, E. M. "Emil Nolde." Parnassus 5.1 (1933): 12,14+25.

Bradley, William S. Emil Nolde and German Expressionism: A Prophet in His Own Land. Vol. no. 52. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1986.

Del Serra, Alfio. “A Conversation on Painting Techniques” The Burlington Magazine. Vol. 127, No. 982 (Jan., 1985), pp. 4-16

Izzo, Francesca. "20th Century Artists’ Oil Paints: A Chemical-Physical Survey."Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia. Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, 2009-2010. Web. 30 Sep 2012. 

Nolde, Emil. Jahre Der Kämpfe. Berlin: Rembrandt-Verlag, 1934.