I've always admired Emil Nolde's "The Mulatto, " which he painted in 1913, and went to see it again on Friday at the Sackler Museum at Harvard. I like the cheeky quality of the subject, her vitality, the cocked head, arched eyebrows, and bright red lips, the pinkish browns, the blacks within a halo of orange-yellow. Circular shapes: face, headband, hair, halo.Nolde joined the Nazi party, I've learned, and believed in racial purity. Did he hold these ideas in 1913 when he painted "The Mulatto"? I don't know. Do you think his portrayal of the woman is ambivalent? The colors are discordant--but they are in most of his work.
The Nazis branded him a degenerate artist and tried to stop him from painting. He worked in secret. Did he change his mind about racial purity? I don't know. I'll have to find out more about him. After the war, he was awarded the German Order of Merit, the country's highest civilian honor.
