“'My feelings can keep developing only in an admiring contemplation of nature,' said Mackensen, the actual founder and leading mind of the [Worpswede artist]-group. In 1897 Paula Becker chose him as her mentor. From her letters and diaries, we learn how deeply she loved the Worpswede countryside, the vast sky, the dark moor, the birch trees by shiny ditches of water, the moor cabins, and the people, marked by living in this world. But few of her paintings are pure landscapes, unlike the genuine Worpsweders [artists made them].”