ERNST NORLIND - Wounded Fallow Deer, 1923
Regular price 40 857,00 krERNST NORLIND (1877–1952) Sweden
Wounded Fallow Deer, 1923
signed with monogram and dated lower right E N 23
oil on canvas
unframed 57.5 × 62 cm (22.6 × 24.4 in)
framed 61 × 66 cm (24 × 26 in)
Provenance:
A private collection Stockholm (kommission sale)
Essay:
Painted in 1923, Wounded Fallow Deer concentrates its drama within the body of a single animal. The fallow buck fills almost the entire canvas, its head raised, mouth open and legs drawn into sharp angles. Its broad antlers sweep towards the upper right, balancing the upward movement of the head. A wound interrupts the spotted flank, while the subdued woodland setting gives the animal’s distress an immediate and concentrated presence.
The painting’s most striking quality is the Cubist inflection of its forms. Norlind constructs the neck, chest and haunch through broad, angular planes, while the folded legs establish a sequence of triangles, wedges and intersecting diagonals. Dark blue contours articulate these shapes with unusual clarity. Even the palmate antlers become flattened bands, their sweep interrupted by pointed projections. The resulting tension between observed anatomy and geometric simplification gives the deer a powerful sculptural presence. Its body is simultaneously a living creature and a carefully organised arrangement of forms.
Norlind’s art developed from sustained observation of nature and a pronounced literary sensibility. Born in Vellinge in southern Sweden, he studied in Dachau and Paris, and was influenced by the atmospheric painting associated with Adolf Hölzel and his circle. His early work has affinities with Symbolism and Jugend, traditions in which line and natural imagery could convey feeling as well as description. Birds, particularly storks, became recurring subjects, but his animal imagery also encompassed dramatic encounters. The emotional concentration of the present work is consistent with this broader interest in the expressive possibilities of the natural world.
His artistic contacts extended into European modernism. In March 1916, Wassily Kandinsky dedicated a drypoint to Norlind in Stockholm; the sheet is documented as having belonged to Norlind’s collection at Borgeby. Kandinsky also depicted him on horseback in the watercolour Aquarell für Poul Bjerre, made that same month. These encounters enrich our understanding of Norlind’s cultural world, in which painting, literature and intellectual exchange were closely connected.
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