Otto Modersohn

About the work

The "Moor Canal with Birch Trees in Spring" depicts a typical Worpsweder landscape: the expansive overarching sky, beneath which lies an open, flat countryside, leavened only by a few bright birch trees and narrow canals, their banks covered with blossoming cotton grass. Our gaze is guided along the water towards the horizon, and we can almost smell the clear country air and feel the gentle breeze. Tiny figures are dotted across the landscape in the far distance, a few spots of colour adumbrating human dwellings. The tranquil scene is dominated by the power of nature, upon which civilisation has left its indelible marks; the arrow-straight irrigation canals with the narrow bridge and the stacks of peat sods are the work of man, who has subordinated himself to nature.
(Eva Müller-Remmert)
  
This poem by Hermann Löns "All the Birches Are Blossoming" from 1911, encapsulates beautifully the atmosphere of this serene moor landscape:
  
The birch trees are all in blossom,
Every bramble bush glitters like gold.
All the heather larks are singing for joy,
Every black cock is clucking and frolicking.
My eyes are darting back and forth,
From the black, white fluffy moor,
To the brown and verdant sea of heather.
They peer up at the heavens.
To the blue canopy above,
As light as a tuft of cotton grass.
And my heart, it sings a lilting melody,
Which floats up to the heavens.
A soft song, a silent song,
A song as delicate and gentle
As the wisps of cloud,
Sweeping across the blue firmament,
Like a flock of cotton grass in the wind.