Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956)

With its vibrant and nervous colouration, organised along Feininger's signature rayonist composition, Afternoon Light I seems to break away from the coolness and linearity of his earlier cityscapes.

In June 1928 Feininger discovered a seascape village on the Pomeranian Baltic coast at the mouth of the Rega, not far from the town of Treptow. This isolated spot had the same intense impact on his inspiration as his discovery of the Thuringian villages during his Berlin years. Whilst in the mid 1920s he was primarily interested in depicting the atmospheric effects on the unfathomable body of water, at the beginning of the 1930s he extended his research to the narrow alleys of the close village of Treptow. In 1932, he painted three versions, namely Lane in Treptow, Afternoon Light I (fig. 1), and the present painting. Thematically, the three canvases share the common motif of an empty street, bathed in golden evening light. Stylistically, the paintings reveal different degrees of stylisation of the diagonal and vertical lines defining the architecture. In Afternoon Light II, a rigorous scheme is superimposed on the painting like a perspective-grid, leading the eye towards the focal point. In Afternoon Light I, on the contrary, the forms emerge from a deliberate handling of the light, which has its source outside the picture, and smoothly crumble until they dissolve into pure painting.