Right from the start, Otto Modersohn's paintings were characterized by a direct, anti-academic focus on nature and ambiance. In 1883, he began his studies by taking various classes at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. His last class was Eugen Dücker's landscape class in 1887, before he transferred to the Karlsruhe Academy. The influence of the naturalistic-impressionistic approach to landscape is evident in Modersohn's early landscapes, enhanced by a sentimental element expressed in the intuitive looseness of the brushwork, the movement of the forms and the depth of the colors. The mysterious, dark mood so characteristic of Modersohn's later paintings from Worpswede, supplemented by the delicate transparency of the evening sky and the warm light of twilight, already resonates here in a wonderful way. In search of new impressions that corresponded to a style of painting informed by the romantic French plein-air painting of Barbizon, he traveled with Fritz Mackensen to Worpswede for the first time in 1889. The first exhibition of the group of artists followed in Bremen in 1895 and laid the foundation for a very special chapter in landscape painting. [KT]