Liebespaar 1920

Otto Mueller made this painting, Liebespaar, with oil on canvas, though the exact date is unknown. It’s like he built this image up from a stain, this reddish-brown monochrome, before adding the figures. There’s an expressionistic simplicity to the forms that reminds me of Kirchner, but with a haunting tenderness all its own. Look at the way he models the woman's body. It's not about capturing physical perfection but about emotion. There’s a yellow tint in the area between her torso and arm, which suggests a tension, like the artist has squeezed paint straight from the tube, or scrubbed at the canvas to achieve that exact hue. The embrace of the couple is tentative but tender. It feels as if the paint itself is embracing the figures. This idea of figures emerging from a primordial soup of colour relates to other artists interested in primitivism such as Paula Modersohn-Becker. Ultimately Mueller’s work leaves us with more questions than answers, and that’s what makes it so compelling.