March 22, 2007
40 pieces of fine Romantic German Art are on show at the Eldon Gallery, the selection taken from the Ashmolean’s larger donated collection. Drawings by 16th Century Masters, showing the intensity of dark human emotions such as grief in Matthias Grunewald’s ‘An Elderly Woman with Clasped Hands’, are bequests from Antiquarian Francis Douce. Drawing is proven in this exhibition to be a powerful medium, having less form but all of the life of a painting. German-born scholar Dr Grete Ring’s bequests are from a period she is published in, namely 19th Century German Artists. The latter, inspired by the finesse of Durer’s lines form a group known as the Nazarenes with Friedrich Overbeck as leader. It is in Overbeck’s soft flowing biblical drawing, ‘The Prophet Elijah Casting his Mantle over Elisha’ that the Nazarene Artists’ belief in putting back the spirituality in Christian Art is evident. This turning against the tide of the predominantly technical Art Education of the day by the Nazarene group paves the way for similar movements such as the later English Pre-Raphaelites.
Caspar David Friedrich is attributed with popularising the landscape as a form of genre art and uses a darker sepia wash to contrast between earthy foreground and a paler range of background mountains in ‘Landscape in Bohemia with a View of Mount Jeschken’. A variety of media, from the broad strokes of charcoal to fine pencil, is applied with different techniques to achieve chiaroscuro, a contrast between light and shade. Red chalk is used softly by Johann Christian Brand to create the subtle tones of a cornfield landscape. ‘The Brocken on a May Morning’ watercolour of Georg Heinrich Crola captures the sparkling freshness of an early morning solitary walk on a fresh Spring day. Attention to the detail within these small-framed works pays off particularly to the widely travelled viewer. ‘The Ponte Salario’ is captured with the fine precision of a pencil drawing by Johann Christoph Erhard. ‘View of Rome with the Baths of Titus’ is a rewarding study by Joseph Anton Koch.
However the earlier works of Old Master Durer is the main attraction. With many of Durer’s print drawings not surviving the process of transferring the lines to the carved surface of a wood block by a technician it is a privilege to enjoy the delightfully detailed ‘Design for a Table-Fountain’ that shows an Italian style in its composition. The Artists exhibited in the Eldon Gallery continue to exert influence over today’s contemporary Art. A possible self-portrait of Durer wearing a turban in ‘Youth kneeling in front of Portentate’ is included. Durer’s self-dramatising approach to self-portraiture remains popular centuries later. The line drawings on display are yet to be surpassed by graphic Artists. Hans Holbein the Younger’s ‘Figure of a Woman in Contemporary Dress’ displays admirable modelling, direct representation of face and accentuated volume of the dress akin to the international style of portraiture. Yet inhaling the beauty of the countryside captured by this selection of Artists inspired by the Old Master, it is Durer’s legacy in introducing some of the first pure landscape watercolours to Western Art I am duly thankful for.
Caspar David Friedrich is attributed with popularising the landscape as a form of genre art and uses a darker sepia wash to contrast between earthy foreground and a paler range of background mountains in ‘Landscape in Bohemia with a View of Mount Jeschken’. A variety of media, from the broad strokes of charcoal to fine pencil, is applied with different techniques to achieve chiaroscuro, a contrast between light and shade. Red chalk is used softly by Johann Christian Brand to create the subtle tones of a cornfield landscape. ‘The Brocken on a May Morning’ watercolour of Georg Heinrich Crola captures the sparkling freshness of an early morning solitary walk on a fresh Spring day. Attention to the detail within these small-framed works pays off particularly to the widely travelled viewer. ‘The Ponte Salario’ is captured with the fine precision of a pencil drawing by Johann Christoph Erhard. ‘View of Rome with the Baths of Titus’ is a rewarding study by Joseph Anton Koch.
However the earlier works of Old Master Durer is the main attraction. With many of Durer’s print drawings not surviving the process of transferring the lines to the carved surface of a wood block by a technician it is a privilege to enjoy the delightfully detailed ‘Design for a Table-Fountain’ that shows an Italian style in its composition. The Artists exhibited in the Eldon Gallery continue to exert influence over today’s contemporary Art. A possible self-portrait of Durer wearing a turban in ‘Youth kneeling in front of Portentate’ is included. Durer’s self-dramatising approach to self-portraiture remains popular centuries later. The line drawings on display are yet to be surpassed by graphic Artists. Hans Holbein the Younger’s ‘Figure of a Woman in Contemporary Dress’ displays admirable modelling, direct representation of face and accentuated volume of the dress akin to the international style of portraiture. Yet inhaling the beauty of the countryside captured by this selection of Artists inspired by the Old Master, it is Durer’s legacy in introducing some of the first pure landscape watercolours to Western Art I am duly thankful for.