Girl with flower wreath

Girl with Flower Wreath from 1901, at the Neue Nationalgalerie, depicts a child wearing a crown of flowers — a motif with both folk-cultural and religious resonances in German art. The flower wreath connects the child to seasonal ritual, to the old German country customs of spring and midsummer that were of intense interest to the Worpswede artists as evidence of a living folk culture. Modersohn-Becker treated such motifs without irony or condescension, finding in them a genuine connection between the rural community and the cycles of the natural world. The directness with which she paints the child's face, unidealized, gives the image its power.

The flower wreath introduces color — pinks, whites, yellows — against the otherwise muted palette of the figure and background. The child's face is painted with the simplified directness characteristic of Modersohn-Becker's child portraits, without sweetening or idealizing the features.