Lot Essay
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff was by temperament almost exclusively a landscape painter, and his bold colourist compositions represent some of the most seminal works of Die Brücke movement. The present painting, executed in 1910, is a particularly free, expressive work from Schmidt-Rottluff's seminal Dangast period. Between 1907 and 1912 he habitually spent the summer months on the Dangast moor near the North Sea and his landscapes of this period are notable for their astonishingly powerful colours and for the speed and confidence with which they are painted. Dangaster Park is a particularly pure example of German Expressionist painting.
Schmidt-Rottluff was the youngest member of the Brücke group, which he named and founded together with his fellow architecture students Kirchner, Fritz Bleyl and Heckel in Dresden in 1905. The artists were later joined by Cuno Amiet, Max Pechstein, Otto Mueller and the already established Emil Nolde. Although they worked in a communal studio in Dresden, the more independently minded Schmidt-Rottluff spent the summers of 1907 to 1910 in Dangast, a small fishing-village on the marshy lands of the Jadebusen inlet of the North Sea. Kirchner and Pechstein chose instead to remain closer to Dresden and visited the remote Moritzburg lakes between 1909 and 1911. Heckel travelled between the two, but most significantly worked with Schmidt-Roffluff, with whom he had been friends since their school days in Chemnitz.
Schmidt-Rottluff probably shared Heckel's response to the evocative landscape of Dangast where, according to Gustav Schiefler, he "discovered a feeling for the expansiveness of space and the corporeality of the sky; the sea and its atmosphere communicated both these to him...Objects submitted to the totality of the surroundings to such a degree that space, air and light appear as the actual carriers of the sensation" (G. Schiefler, 'Erich Heckel Graphisches Werk', Das Kunstblatt, vol. II, no. 9, 1918, p. 286).
The violent colours and energetic brushstrokes of Dangaster Park
reveal not only Schmidt-Rottluff's interest in the works of the Fauves, but also the inspiration he found in the raw beauty of Dangast. An extant preparatory study for the painting, executed in chalk, shows how the artist mapped out the basic composition before developing it with colour in the oil (fig. 2). As Barry Herbert has commented on a work painted by the artist the previous summer "His work reached an extreme pitch of emotional intensity in its semi-abstract handling of form and colour without ever quite losing contact with tangible reality. The brilliantly coloured, loosely-applied paint communicates that feverish involvement with the subject that distinguished the young German artist's vision from the more impersonal approach favoured by Matisse, and identified him as, above all, a direct successor to Van Gogh and Munch" (B. Herbert, German Expressionism, Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter, London, 1983, p. 118).
The present work shows how Schmidt-Rottluff had in fact developed away from the influence of Neo-Impressionism and Van Gogh and in the summer of 1910 moved towards a far more spontaneous approach. The thick impasto of his earlier works, which he built up with heavily-loaded, short brushstrokes, has given way to a flatter, broader application of paint. Schmidt-Rottluff devised a technique of diluting his pigment with paraffin which allowed him to paint impulsively with freer, more expansive brushstrokes, at times, as in the present work, leaving glimpses of the canvas bare as he painted with dashing self-confidence.
The summer of 1910 is recognised as one of the most creative periods in Schmidt-Rottluff's career and the works from this period are widely acknowledged as not only amongst the most important in his oeuvre but also of German Expressionist art (see figs. 3, 4, 5 & 6). It is interesting to note that the celebrated Berlin art dealer Alfred Flechtheim made the day-long trip to visit Schmidt-Rottluff in Dangast during that summer, showing how far the young artist's reputation had already spread amongst the members of the avant-garde.
The first ever one-man exhibition of Schmidt-Rottluff's work was mounted at the Galerie Commeter in Hamburg in January 1911 and consisted mainly of paintings executed during the previous summer (fig. 1). The show was received to great critical acclaim, furthering Schmidt-Rottluff's standing independent of the other Brücke artists. Dangaster Park was originally handled by the gallery, and bears one of its labels on the reverse of the artist's frame.
In her review of the Commeter exhibition, Rosa Schapire, the art historian and pioneer of Die Brücke remarked: "Bei Schmidt-Rottluff schliessen sich ein flammendes Rot, ein transparentes Grün, ein tiefes, sattes Blau, ein Gelb von aufregender Intensität zu neuen starken Akkorden und reichen Melodien zusammen. Man kann den optischen Reiz dieser Zusammenklänge empfinden, ehe man sich über die gegenständliche Bedeutung klar wird. Diese Kunst rührt an tiefe Verborgenheiten, und das mag den Zugang zu ihr erschweren. Ihr, der man Brutalität vorwirft, eignet ein mystisches Element, und was sie in uns auslöst, sind keine bequemen Luxusgefühle, sondern Empfindungen, die mit elementarer Gewalt aufsteigen" (in Der Hamburger, November 1911).
Until recently believed lost, Dangaster Park was acquired by the present owner's father-in-law in 1922. Only known through a black and white reproduction, it has not been seen in public for seventy-five years since being exhibited at the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Magdeburg.
Schmidt-Rottluff was the youngest member of the Brücke group, which he named and founded together with his fellow architecture students Kirchner, Fritz Bleyl and Heckel in Dresden in 1905. The artists were later joined by Cuno Amiet, Max Pechstein, Otto Mueller and the already established Emil Nolde. Although they worked in a communal studio in Dresden, the more independently minded Schmidt-Rottluff spent the summers of 1907 to 1910 in Dangast, a small fishing-village on the marshy lands of the Jadebusen inlet of the North Sea. Kirchner and Pechstein chose instead to remain closer to Dresden and visited the remote Moritzburg lakes between 1909 and 1911. Heckel travelled between the two, but most significantly worked with Schmidt-Roffluff, with whom he had been friends since their school days in Chemnitz.
Schmidt-Rottluff probably shared Heckel's response to the evocative landscape of Dangast where, according to Gustav Schiefler, he "discovered a feeling for the expansiveness of space and the corporeality of the sky; the sea and its atmosphere communicated both these to him...Objects submitted to the totality of the surroundings to such a degree that space, air and light appear as the actual carriers of the sensation" (G. Schiefler, 'Erich Heckel Graphisches Werk', Das Kunstblatt, vol. II, no. 9, 1918, p. 286).
The violent colours and energetic brushstrokes of Dangaster Park
reveal not only Schmidt-Rottluff's interest in the works of the Fauves, but also the inspiration he found in the raw beauty of Dangast. An extant preparatory study for the painting, executed in chalk, shows how the artist mapped out the basic composition before developing it with colour in the oil (fig. 2). As Barry Herbert has commented on a work painted by the artist the previous summer "His work reached an extreme pitch of emotional intensity in its semi-abstract handling of form and colour without ever quite losing contact with tangible reality. The brilliantly coloured, loosely-applied paint communicates that feverish involvement with the subject that distinguished the young German artist's vision from the more impersonal approach favoured by Matisse, and identified him as, above all, a direct successor to Van Gogh and Munch" (B. Herbert, German Expressionism, Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter, London, 1983, p. 118).
The present work shows how Schmidt-Rottluff had in fact developed away from the influence of Neo-Impressionism and Van Gogh and in the summer of 1910 moved towards a far more spontaneous approach. The thick impasto of his earlier works, which he built up with heavily-loaded, short brushstrokes, has given way to a flatter, broader application of paint. Schmidt-Rottluff devised a technique of diluting his pigment with paraffin which allowed him to paint impulsively with freer, more expansive brushstrokes, at times, as in the present work, leaving glimpses of the canvas bare as he painted with dashing self-confidence.
The summer of 1910 is recognised as one of the most creative periods in Schmidt-Rottluff's career and the works from this period are widely acknowledged as not only amongst the most important in his oeuvre but also of German Expressionist art (see figs. 3, 4, 5 & 6). It is interesting to note that the celebrated Berlin art dealer Alfred Flechtheim made the day-long trip to visit Schmidt-Rottluff in Dangast during that summer, showing how far the young artist's reputation had already spread amongst the members of the avant-garde.
The first ever one-man exhibition of Schmidt-Rottluff's work was mounted at the Galerie Commeter in Hamburg in January 1911 and consisted mainly of paintings executed during the previous summer (fig. 1). The show was received to great critical acclaim, furthering Schmidt-Rottluff's standing independent of the other Brücke artists. Dangaster Park was originally handled by the gallery, and bears one of its labels on the reverse of the artist's frame.
In her review of the Commeter exhibition, Rosa Schapire, the art historian and pioneer of Die Brücke remarked: "Bei Schmidt-Rottluff schliessen sich ein flammendes Rot, ein transparentes Grün, ein tiefes, sattes Blau, ein Gelb von aufregender Intensität zu neuen starken Akkorden und reichen Melodien zusammen. Man kann den optischen Reiz dieser Zusammenklänge empfinden, ehe man sich über die gegenständliche Bedeutung klar wird. Diese Kunst rührt an tiefe Verborgenheiten, und das mag den Zugang zu ihr erschweren. Ihr, der man Brutalität vorwirft, eignet ein mystisches Element, und was sie in uns auslöst, sind keine bequemen Luxusgefühle, sondern Empfindungen, die mit elementarer Gewalt aufsteigen" (in Der Hamburger, November 1911).
Until recently believed lost, Dangaster Park was acquired by the present owner's father-in-law in 1922. Only known through a black and white reproduction, it has not been seen in public for seventy-five years since being exhibited at the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Magdeburg.