Altmann und Papa Sentis, a mountain postcard by Emil Nolde, also known as Emil Hansen, 1897. — *Altmann und Papa Sentis*, a mountain postcard by Emil Nolde, also known as Emil Hansen, 1897. Museum Appenzell

The man who gave the mountains a face

Emil Nolde had a life-long fascination with the Swiss Alps, immortalising his love of the mountains in many humorous works.

Katrin Brunner

Katrin Brunner is a self-employed journalist specialising in history and chronicler of Niederweningen.

It’s not clear whether this fascination came from the fact that the young Emil had only seen mountains in pictures growing up in Nolde, which was part of Germany until 1920 (now Denmark). But by the time he came to St. Gallen in 1892 to teach technical drawing after training as a wood carver and illustrator, he was smitten. In January of that year, Emil Nolde stood on the bank of Lake Constance, and as he looked at the stunning panorama of the Alps, his mind was made up. Against the wishes of his father, who wanted Emil to take over the family farm or become a carpenter, the then 25-year-old decided to become an artist. From then on, the German was often to be found around St. Gallen with his paints and easel. But what he liked even better was hiking in the nearby Alpstein and all over the Swiss Alps. As a member of the SAC (Swiss Alpine Club), he scaled the Matterhorn, the Jungfrau and the summit of the Monte Rosa. And the mountains’ names such as Schreckhorn (literally peak of fear), Churfirsten (ridges of Chur), Jungfrau (virgin) and Mönch (monk) gave the young man’s imagination plenty to work with.

**Can mountains smile? Nolde thought so, for example the Matterhorn. Mountain postcard from 1896.** Museum Appenzell / Collection Torsten Schmidt-Köhler

Not cut out for teaching

His career as one of the most important German Expressionist painters of his era took off while he was working as an instructor at the museum of industrial arts and crafts in St. Gallen (Industrie- und Gewerbemuseum). However, Hans Emil Hansen – as Nolde was called at the time – was not cut out for teaching. After just five years he was laid off. His taciturn and aloof character was not exactly suited to bonding with students and passing on his knowledge. The painter, who spent nearly every free moment in the mountains, then started painting the most famous Alpine peaks with funny, human faces. He spent the summer of 1894 in the Lötschental, where he produced a whole series of Expressionist mountain postcards: the Berggesichter (the faces of the mountains). It was a completely new way of depicting the mountains and valleys. More out of curiosity than anything, in 1896 Emil Hansen sent two of his pictures to the publisher of the magazine Jugend, where the quirky mountain portraits were an instant hit. The unusual and witty motifs were also very popular with paying customers. In the end, there were around 30 different postcard designs.

Jungfrau, Mönch and Eiger, postcard by Emil Nolde, around 1897. — *Jungfrau, Mönch and Eiger*, postcard by Emil Nolde, around 1897. Swiss National Museum

The sale of these postcards provided Hansen with a steady income. In 1897, for example, he sold around 100,000 cards in the space of ten days. Then, in 1899, the painter won a prize at the International Postcard Exhibition in Nice for his original postcard artworks. It was only after these successes that he was able to make a living as an independent artist. Hansen was evidently a driven person. Around the turn of the 20th century, he left Switzerland to return to Germany. And in 1902 he changed his name from Hans Emil Hansen to Emil Nolde. Whether this name change was intended to pay homage to his home town, or was simply to rid himself of the common name Hansen, has never been fully understood. That same year he married the actress Adamine (‘Ada’) Vilstrup.

**Portrait of Emil Nolde, pre-1929.** Wikimedia

The artist – by this time known as Emil Nolde – and his wife were staunch National Socialists. As soon as he was able, Nolde joined the NSDAP (Nazi Party). The painter was a racist and anti-Semite and held clear views on the ‘inundation’ of German art with Jewish influences, despite the fact that several of his friends were Jewish artists. It must have come as a heavy blow for him when in 1937 around 50 of his works, including the series of pictures Life of Christ and Lost Paradise, were featured in the Degenerate Art exhibition in Munich. His pictures didn’t correspond at all to the traditional perceptions of the National Socialists, who saw his work as grotesque in figure and colour. In the summer of 1941, Emil Nolde received a letter from Adolf Ziegler, president of the Reich Chamber of Visual Arts, expressly banning him from painting. Ziegler wrote: “... you are still completely misaligned with this cultural ideology and still fail to meet the requirements to practise artistic activities in the Reich and that are therefore necessary to be a member of my Chamber.”

Video clip of the 1937 ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition in Munich. YouTube

Nonetheless, Emil Nolde defended the ideology of the Nazi regime until the end. Being rejected by Hitler’s art officials actually turned to his advantage after the war. He was allowed to paint again and the victorious powers saw him as a victim. Nolde destroyed the documentary evidence that he had been a Nazi sympathiser shortly after the war. In 1946 Adamine Vilstrup died of heart failure. Two years later, Emil Nolde married 26-year-old Jolanthe Erdmann. The couple visited Switzerland on their honeymoon in 1948. But that was to be the last time, as the man who gave the mountains a face died in April 1956 at his home in the north German town of Seebüll.