Stehender Mädchenakt Im Grünen 1929

Otto Mueller made this painting of a standing nude girl in a green space, probably in the 1910s or 20s. You can see how he’s built up the image with these short, choppy brushstrokes, a bit like Cézanne, but wilder and more expressionistic. It’s like he’s trying to capture a fleeting impression, not just of the figure, but of the experience of being in nature. The paint is thin and washy, almost like watercolor, especially in the background. But then you get to the figure and there's these concentrated areas of color. Like the way he’s used a dark line to give her breasts some definition, it’s economical, but also kind of blunt. And look at the girl’s expression, or lack of one. Her face is simplified. She’s both present and absent. Mueller reminds me a bit of Paula Modersohn-Becker, who also used nudes to convey a sense of intimacy and interiority. Both artists suggest that art is about feeling, about intuition, and about embracing the ambiguous and open-ended nature of the creative process.