Hamburg, Saint Catherine's Church 1910

This is Emil Nolde’s image of Hamburg's Saint Catherine’s Church, created using etching on a plate. Can you imagine Nolde inking the plate, wiping it back, then pressing the paper onto the surface? There's a real push and pull in this image between light and dark, with these scratchy, urgent lines. You can almost feel the rain, the gloom, the intensity of the Northern light. I’m struck by the drama he wrings from the sky, looming over the church spire, as it stretches upwards like a gothic finger. He manages to convey so much emotional weather here. Nolde was part of that whole Expressionist movement, and like Kirchner and Heckel, he was trying to push the boundaries, to find new ways of seeing and feeling. This image embodies that struggle—to capture the essence of a place, a feeling, with such stark simplicity. It's a reminder that artists borrow, steal, and riff off each other all the time. It’s like a big, messy conversation across time.