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Lot 424 THE PROPERTY OF A GERMAN COLLECTOR
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884-1976)
Weg im Schwarzwald
Closed21 June 2018
Estimate
GBP 100,000–200,000
More Information
Specialist note
Hermann Gerlinger has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
Painted in 1964 this striking landscape is a late depiction by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff of a rural road winding through the dramatic vista of Germany’s Schwarzwald or Black Forest. Rendered in a series of sharp, angular, free forms of heightened, almost psychedelic colour in places, the painting is a remarkable example of the late style that Schmidt-Rottluff first developed in the 1920s and to which he adhered for the rest of his life.
Softer and more muted than the more vigorous, dynamic, raw and spontaneous paintings of his Die Brücke days, paintings such as Weg im Schwarzwald present a calmer, more idealized vision of nature as a more harmonious and cosmically-united entity. Still the product of an intuitive and spontaneous response to his subject matter Weg im Schwarzwald reveals the artist still painting directly onto the empty canvas without first drawing and creating an expressionistic vision of the scene before him, but with a more mature sense of the overall balance and coordination of the whole.
‘Personally,’ Schmidt-Rottluff had written in 1914, ‘I don’t have any programme, only an unaccountable longing to take hold of what I see and feel, and to find the most direct means of expression for such an experience. I only know that there are some things which cannot be grasped by either intellect or words.’ (Karl Schmidt-Rottluff “Das Neue Programm: Antwort auf eine Rundfrage über künstlerische Programme”, Kunst und Kunstler, vol 12, Berlin 1914, p. 308). It was to this, essentially intuitive and anti-intellectual, approach to his work that Schmidt-Rotluff, unlike many of his Die Brücke colleagues, would remain faithful throughout his life.
Painted in 1964 this striking landscape is a late depiction by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff of a rural road winding through the dramatic vista of Germany’s Schwarzwald or Black Forest. Rendered in a series of sharp, angular, free forms of heightened, almost psychedelic colour in places, the painting is a remarkable example of the late style that Schmidt-Rottluff first developed in the 1920s and to which he adhered for the rest of his life.
Softer and more muted than the more vigorous, dynamic, raw and spontaneous paintings of his Die Brücke days, paintings such as Weg im Schwarzwald present a calmer, more idealized vision of nature as a more harmonious and cosmically-united entity. Still the product of an intuitive and spontaneous response to his subject matter Weg im Schwarzwald reveals the artist still painting directly onto the empty canvas without first drawing and creating an expressionistic vision of the scene before him, but with a more mature sense of the overall balance and coordination of the whole.
‘Personally,’ Schmidt-Rottluff had written in 1914, ‘I don’t have any programme, only an unaccountable longing to take hold of what I see and feel, and to find the most direct means of expression for such an experience. I only know that there are some things which cannot be grasped by either intellect or words.’ (Karl Schmidt-Rottluff “Das Neue Programm: Antwort auf eine Rundfrage über künstlerische Programme”, Kunst und Kunstler, vol 12, Berlin 1914, p. 308). It was to this, essentially intuitive and anti-intellectual, approach to his work that Schmidt-Rotluff, unlike many of his Die Brücke colleagues, would remain faithful throughout his life.