Lot Essay
Schaufenster mit gelben Bäumen comes from Macke's celebrated 'Window display' series of 1912-14, which depicts figures looking into the windows of fashion shops (see Vriesen, op. cit., nos. 426, 430 and 433).
Shortly after the famous Herbstsalon had taken place in Berlin in the Autumn of 1913, Macke moved with his wife Elisabeth and their two small sons, to Hilterfingen by Lake Thun in Switzerland. Vriesen comments on this move; "Die acht Monate, die er dort verbrachte, kann man zu den glücklichsten und produktivsten seines Lebens zählen." (ibid, p. 134).
"In Thun entdeckte Macke erst seine Liebe für das anmutige Motiv des Hutladens, das er in zahlreichen Varianten, Ölbildern, Aquarellen und Zeichnungen abwandelte...immer wieder entzückte sich seine Bildphantasie im Anblick eleganter Frauen, die in der Betrachtung der liebenswürdigen Gebilde hinter der Spiegelglasscheibe versunken sind. Ein unendlicher Charme, eine fein schwebende Melancholie liegt über diesen Bildern, - 'als ob in diesem Stehenbleiben und gleich wieder Weitergehen sich ihm die Erfahrung der Vergänglichkeit...offenbart hätte' (Ilse Erdmann an Rainer Maria Rilke. Anhang)" (ibid, p. 141).
The present work is characterized by Macke's unique mastery of colour; as early as 1907 he came upon Matisse's lyrical colour in Paris, and his palette was further affected by his involvement in Der Blaue Reiter after 1910, and by meeting Robert Delaunay in 1912. Through him, Macke discovered a new pictorial order based on subtle colour relationships; "he achieved a new mastery of colour that enabled him to transform the visible world into poetry...Macke always had something bright, clear, and crystalline before his eyes, and his actual picture of the world was lyrically transformed on canvas by that instinctive vision." (ed. A. Carnduff Ritchie, German Art of the Twentieth Century, New York, 1957, p. 61).
"Macke's work was a constant reaffirmation of his unaffected delight in this earthly paradise of which he found himself to be a part, and in his paintings he recorded its small, apparently insignificant, moments of pleasure with a penetrating and tender eye for the underlying currents of feeling that made them memorable...In them it is as if all wordly cares have been temporarily laid aside, self-consciousness has been forgotten, and these men and women once again experience something like their former state of innocence. Their figures are static and calm in the midst of activity as they wait, quietly observing the ebb and flow of life around them - and it was no mere artistic affectation that made Macke show his characters either sunk deep in thought or in the act of silently watching. The passing moment becomes fixed in time." (B. Herbert, German Expressionism, Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter, London, 1983, pp. 148-9).
Macke was killed in action at Champagne on 26 September 1914, at the age of twenty-seven. "Everything he touched, everyone he knew came to life", Marc wrote, stunned by the sudden loss of his close friend. "Every kind of material, and above all the people who were drawn into his spells as if by magic. How much we painters are indebted to him. The seed he scattered will always bear fruit, and we, his friends, will always make certain it does not remain hidden. But his work is wretchedly and irrevocably cut off." (B. Herbet, op. cit., p. 187).
The preparatory watercolour study for the present work is housed in the Museum Ludwig, Cologne (see Fig. 1).
Shortly after the famous Herbstsalon had taken place in Berlin in the Autumn of 1913, Macke moved with his wife Elisabeth and their two small sons, to Hilterfingen by Lake Thun in Switzerland. Vriesen comments on this move; "Die acht Monate, die er dort verbrachte, kann man zu den glücklichsten und produktivsten seines Lebens zählen." (ibid, p. 134).
"In Thun entdeckte Macke erst seine Liebe für das anmutige Motiv des Hutladens, das er in zahlreichen Varianten, Ölbildern, Aquarellen und Zeichnungen abwandelte...immer wieder entzückte sich seine Bildphantasie im Anblick eleganter Frauen, die in der Betrachtung der liebenswürdigen Gebilde hinter der Spiegelglasscheibe versunken sind. Ein unendlicher Charme, eine fein schwebende Melancholie liegt über diesen Bildern, - 'als ob in diesem Stehenbleiben und gleich wieder Weitergehen sich ihm die Erfahrung der Vergänglichkeit...offenbart hätte' (Ilse Erdmann an Rainer Maria Rilke. Anhang)" (ibid, p. 141).
The present work is characterized by Macke's unique mastery of colour; as early as 1907 he came upon Matisse's lyrical colour in Paris, and his palette was further affected by his involvement in Der Blaue Reiter after 1910, and by meeting Robert Delaunay in 1912. Through him, Macke discovered a new pictorial order based on subtle colour relationships; "he achieved a new mastery of colour that enabled him to transform the visible world into poetry...Macke always had something bright, clear, and crystalline before his eyes, and his actual picture of the world was lyrically transformed on canvas by that instinctive vision." (ed. A. Carnduff Ritchie, German Art of the Twentieth Century, New York, 1957, p. 61).
"Macke's work was a constant reaffirmation of his unaffected delight in this earthly paradise of which he found himself to be a part, and in his paintings he recorded its small, apparently insignificant, moments of pleasure with a penetrating and tender eye for the underlying currents of feeling that made them memorable...In them it is as if all wordly cares have been temporarily laid aside, self-consciousness has been forgotten, and these men and women once again experience something like their former state of innocence. Their figures are static and calm in the midst of activity as they wait, quietly observing the ebb and flow of life around them - and it was no mere artistic affectation that made Macke show his characters either sunk deep in thought or in the act of silently watching. The passing moment becomes fixed in time." (B. Herbert, German Expressionism, Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter, London, 1983, pp. 148-9).
Macke was killed in action at Champagne on 26 September 1914, at the age of twenty-seven. "Everything he touched, everyone he knew came to life", Marc wrote, stunned by the sudden loss of his close friend. "Every kind of material, and above all the people who were drawn into his spells as if by magic. How much we painters are indebted to him. The seed he scattered will always bear fruit, and we, his friends, will always make certain it does not remain hidden. But his work is wretchedly and irrevocably cut off." (B. Herbet, op. cit., p. 187).
The preparatory watercolour study for the present work is housed in the Museum Ludwig, Cologne (see Fig. 1).