His pronounced tendency to retreat to unspoiled landscapes of the North Sea and Baltic Sea characterizes Schmidt-Rottluff's artistic personality and makes him a loner in the circle of the "Brücke". In the beginning, his work was still clearly influenced by Impressionism. North German and Scandinavian landscapes appear as motifs. His move to Berlin in 1911 brought him into contact with the currents of the international avant-garde. Suggestions from Cubism, Futurism and African tribal art increasingly found their way into his work from 1912. In 1913, after the dissolution of the "Brücke", Schmidt-Rottluff developed a massive-monumental stylized formal language. The late Expressionist work of the 1920s is dominated by watercolors and paintings. Until the early 1930s Schmidt-Rottluff spends the summer at the Baltic Sea. Travels take him to Italy, Paris, Dalmatia and Ticino.