Besides the landscape, it is portraits and figures that define Nolde’s entire oeuvre. In addition to the classic portrait (which is rare for Nolde) or the fantasy portrait in single or group compositions, one finds biblical or family constellations like brother and sister or mother and child.
The approaching of the subjects is seldom classical in the sense of the faithful reproduction of the real physiognomy. Much more than this, Nolde attempts to work out the characteristics beyond a traditional and mimetic presentation.
The representation of the Young Family with mother, father and infant, originating in 1949, can be traced back to the so-called ‘unpainted painting’, a small watercolour from the period 1938-1941, which is today found in the Nolde Foundation in Seebüll. The artist realised the painting in oil, which deviates only in nuances, in 1949. The subject of the family in a trio constellation immediately awakens associations with the thematic cycle of the religious paintings, a focus in Nolde’s work – especially with the Holy Family of Maria, Joseph and the little Christ child – the archetype of the ideal family. Biblical themes occupied Nolde, whose life had been defined by religion from earliest childhood, throughout his entire creative life.
Manfred Reuther wrote the following about Nolde’s biblically influenced works. “It is a religious art outside of the churches and free of dogmatic restriction, at the same time born of childlike naivety and personal emotional turmoil … .”
