Ostfriesisches Mädchen in den Dünen

Paula Modersohn-Becker's painting of a girl from the East Frisian coastal dunes belongs to her recurring engagement with working-class girls of the Worpswede region, subjects she treated with a simplifying, archaic monumentality derived from her study of Cézanne and German Expressionist tendencies. East Frisian girls in regional costume provided models she could paint without the social mediation that more fashionable subjects required. The dune landscape — sparse, bleached, wind-shaped — suited her interest in pure form stripped of decorative elaboration. The painting is at the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands.

The figure is placed frontally against a simplified dune landscape, treated with the blocklike simplification characteristic of Modersohn-Becker's mature approach. Facial features are modeled in broad planes. The palette is cool and restrained — pale ochres, sandy whites, grey-greens. Brushwork is direct and without fussiness.