The Red House

Max Pechstein painted The Red House during a trip to the town of Nidden, a remote fishing village on the Baltic Sea where he often escaped the constraints of Berlin life. This particular work formed part of a series of red houses and other architectural structures–such as bathhouses and a cathedral–that reflects a documentary impulse to record outdoor scenes from multiple perspectives under various conditions. However, Pechstein also ventured beyond strict observation and had a desire to, as he put it, "dive into colors, roll around in tones!" As is clear from the rough brushwork and saturated palette, this radical experimentation–carried out as part of the avant-garde artists' group Die Brücke (the Bridge)–forged new connections between traditional painting and the intensity of 20th-century experience.