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The presentation of works by Derain and his Fauve colleagues to the public in Paris in the Autumn Salon of 1905 coincided with the creation of the Die Brücke (The Bridge) group in Dresden. Die Brücke was the first German Expressionist group of the twentieth-century. Both Fauvism and Expressionism sprung from a similar rejection of the art of the past and expressed the same spirit of rebellion against Impressionism. Sharing the influence of Van Gogh, they also had a new concept of form and colour which from that point on would be used to convey interior expression. However, while the young French Fauve artists availed themselves of this subjective distortion in order simply to develop a new pictorial language, in Germany the new artistic spirit would become linked to the quintessentially Germanic theory of art as emotional expression.
Among the aims of the recently created Expressionist group was that of constructing a bridge between man and nature, between art and life, influenced by Nietzsche's vitalist philosophy. In addition, the alienation of modern man and his uprooting from his native soil fed the myth of a primeval harmony between man and nature. This myth encouraged the young artists to abandon their Dresden studios and travel to small and remote villages in search of a greater contact with nature. It was thus that in the summer of 1907 Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt Rottluff undertook their first visit to the North Sea in search of new subjects to paint.
The small village of Dangast in the province of Oldenburg on the north coast of Germany was the paradise which they found by chance, and where both artists would give full play to their creative instincts. They spent a fruitful season there, fascinated by the variety of the landscape, the rustic style of the architecture and the changing weather. The outskirts of Dangast had numerous brick factories whose high chimneys and brightly coloured roofs of red tiles stood out in the rural landscape. As we can see in a photograph published by Peter Vergo (1992), some of these factories still stand. Heckel painted this brick factory in 1907 and again the following year from a different viewpoint, confirming his interest in this building.
In this first version the strident and unrealistic colours and the thick and tactile brushstrokes demonstrate the powerful influence of Van Gogh. As Donald Gordon (1987) wrote, the exhibition of works by Van Gogh in the Arnold Gallery in Dresden in November 1905 was a major factor in the consolidation of the Expressionist style of the first Die Brücke period. Through Van Gogh the young German artists discovered the way out of Impressionism and a subjective riposte to the prevailing positivism and naturalism.
In the present painting Heckel has completely dispensed with outlines and creates the form mainly through colour. The composition is dominated by the strong line created by the buildings of the brick factory which is only modified by the strong vertical of the large red chimney. The small and thick brushtrokes are applied very spontaneously and with a feeling of movement which accentuates the expressiveness of the composition. Clearly Heckel is reinterpreting Van Gogh's ordered brushstrokes -applied in a systematic way which created an effect of order and even suggesting a certain scientific divisionism- and is using a less ordered and more erratic handling. For the Expressionists, Van Gogh would remain essentially an artist within the French mould, interested in achieving a certain order and balance in the picture surface. The young Expressionists rejected the structural aspects of his work and only used the expressive elements of his artistic language, which would open up a new path for them towards the consolidation of their mature style.
Paloma Alarcó
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