During his time in Hamburg, Schmidt-Rottluff continued to develop bold perspectives on the depiction of women. In "Frau mit aufgelöstem Haar"(Woman with Loose Hair) the artist devotes himself to a classic subject of art history that has become an almost self-evident motif for the artists of "Die Brücke": women grooming themselves, the voyeuristic observation of intimate procedures. Schmidt-Rottluff's woodcuts show an increasing style-defining bawdiness by filling the woman's body shape and cutting it directly into the wooden block. Regardless of perspective or proportion, he foregoes embellishing the human anatomy. The contemplative appearance of the moment – the dreamy play with the tips of the hair – must now give way to the artist's will to design in a particularly radical way. The woodcut technique seemed to have accommodated Schmidt-Rottluff's quest for the fundamental, the primordial and the true. He effectively accentuates the wide hips, massive thighs, the spherical breasts, the thick, falling hair, setting the elegant, long, slender fingers as a kind of counterpoint. Schmidt-Rottluff has always traced the ideal of the female body, and this radical conception catches the viewer's attention. Schmidt-Rottluff was fascinated by African sculptures and masks, which are characterized by the emphasis on physical details such as eyes, nose and mouth area, breasts and buttocks and thus also reflect a traditional ideal of beauty. During these years, the artist began to compile his own collection of cult objects and artifacts, not only from Africa but also from the South Seas. [MvL]