Oil on canvas
77 × 85 cm
Hilti Art Foundation, Schaan
Die Lesende (Woman Reading) is one of the first large-format works in the œuvre of Schmidt-Rottluff, an important representative of Expressionism and a founding member of the Brücke artists' group. He depicts his young sitter with expansive and monumental gesture. The extreme close-up, essentially a photographic device, is achieved by cropping the figure and squeezing it into the rectangular picture plane. The woman, probably seated on a sofa and engrossed in her book, does not establish eye contact with the viewer. She keeps her distance despite the proximity and informality of her attitude. Her eyes are lowered in full concentration on the book that she is holding in her slender, plant-like hands. The composition converges in this part of the canvas; the shapes are more complex and smaller as opposed to the large flat fields of colour that characterize the rest of the painting. Instead of being placed seamlessly side-by-side, the colours are outlined in the nature of a preliminary sketch. Schmidt-Rottluff borrowed the device from woodcutting, a medium of great interest to him. The colours, clear cut at first sight, radiate an inner luminosity that stems from subtle combinations of primer and superimposed layers of paint, such as green on yellow or petrol on red. The tension and excitement generated by the strong yellows and reds heightens the casual, relaxed pose of the reader.
The mask-like countenance of the young woman with her pointed chin and full lips is reminiscent of West African tribal art, specifically the sculptures made by the Fang people. Woman Reading exemplifies the "primitivism" practiced by Brücke artists, whose interest in the art of Oceania and Africa was initially inspired by visits to the Dresden Museum of Ethnology.
Angela Schneider
"[…] But speaking for myself, I know that I have no programme, only the unaccountable longing to grasp what I see and feel, and to find the purest means of expressing for it."
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
Quoted after Karl Brix, in: Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Der Maler, Magdalena M. Moeller and Hans-Werner Schmidt (Hg.), Verlag Gerd Hatje, Stuttgart 1992, p. 257–258.
