The German painter Eugen Bracht (1842-1921) was a landscape artist first and foremost. This was perhaps not surprising, given his background as a student at the Karlsruhe Academy between 1859-61 and 1875-77, where he was influenced by the landscape art of J.W. Schirmer and C.F. Lessing, and became friends with Hans Thoma, whose attachment to the landscape of his native Schwarzwald region resonated with Bracht.
Although Bracht evinced an unusual eye for telling natural detail, his slightly academic bent was reinforced by his work as a professor for landscape painting, first in Berlin between 1882-1901 and then in Dresden between 1902-1919. His career consisted of a number of highly accomplished paintings, although his inbred conservatism meant that he never struck out in a truly independent way. For all that, he did veer gingerly towards a German form of impressionism after 1902, and is today often classed alongside German modernist painters like Paul Baum, Theodor Hagen and Walter Leistikow.
Bracht embarked on foreign travel to far-afield places a number of times, including trips to the Orient (visiting Palestine, Jordan and Syria) in 1880/81 and again in 1891. He also made various trips to the Italian Riviera throughout the 1890s, and it was on one such excursion that our oil study was created.
The present oil sketch was made in 1893 when Bracht was visiting Rapallo. The purpose of his oil sketching was to build up a stock of small landscapes, which he could then incorporate into larger pictures for formal sale later. He put an enormous amount of artistic acumen into his oil studies.
Our sketch surprises for its slender simplicity: its radical delineation between the rocky ridge in the foreground contrasts with the little triangle of sea visible in the background. Bracht has taken pains to capture the dryness of the parched lumps of earth and the vegetation. An inspection of the painting up close reveals how he used tiny points of paint to denote the heads of the flowers growing amidst the grasses. The remnants of the little row of rocks has been built up as a strip of little squares.
Bracht incorporated our study years later as part of the landscape detail for a larger painting, which today hangs in the museum in Kassel, Germany [1]. During his lifetime, he was famous in his native country for a number of symbolist paintings, which were much to contemporary taste and were treated in the same breath as proto-symbolist works by the famous Arnold Böcklin. Although his reputation in this respect waned after his death, as popular taste changed, we can still today appreciate his qualities as an artist with a wonderful eye for the slightness of beauty.
Today, Bracht's work can be found in the collections of many German museums.
____________________________
1. "Hannibal's Grave", Neue Galerie, Kassel, Inv. nr. AZ 1981/2. Bracht produced a number of versions of this painting.
Although Bracht evinced an unusual eye for telling natural detail, his slightly academic bent was reinforced by his work as a professor for landscape painting, first in Berlin between 1882-1901 and then in Dresden between 1902-1919. His career consisted of a number of highly accomplished paintings, although his inbred conservatism meant that he never struck out in a truly independent way. For all that, he did veer gingerly towards a German form of impressionism after 1902, and is today often classed alongside German modernist painters like Paul Baum, Theodor Hagen and Walter Leistikow.
Bracht embarked on foreign travel to far-afield places a number of times, including trips to the Orient (visiting Palestine, Jordan and Syria) in 1880/81 and again in 1891. He also made various trips to the Italian Riviera throughout the 1890s, and it was on one such excursion that our oil study was created.
The present oil sketch was made in 1893 when Bracht was visiting Rapallo. The purpose of his oil sketching was to build up a stock of small landscapes, which he could then incorporate into larger pictures for formal sale later. He put an enormous amount of artistic acumen into his oil studies.
Our sketch surprises for its slender simplicity: its radical delineation between the rocky ridge in the foreground contrasts with the little triangle of sea visible in the background. Bracht has taken pains to capture the dryness of the parched lumps of earth and the vegetation. An inspection of the painting up close reveals how he used tiny points of paint to denote the heads of the flowers growing amidst the grasses. The remnants of the little row of rocks has been built up as a strip of little squares.
Bracht incorporated our study years later as part of the landscape detail for a larger painting, which today hangs in the museum in Kassel, Germany [1]. During his lifetime, he was famous in his native country for a number of symbolist paintings, which were much to contemporary taste and were treated in the same breath as proto-symbolist works by the famous Arnold Böcklin. Although his reputation in this respect waned after his death, as popular taste changed, we can still today appreciate his qualities as an artist with a wonderful eye for the slightness of beauty.
Today, Bracht's work can be found in the collections of many German museums.
____________________________
1. "Hannibal's Grave", Neue Galerie, Kassel, Inv. nr. AZ 1981/2. Bracht produced a number of versions of this painting.
Stony ridge on the Mediterranean, 1893
Signed lower left: EUGEN BRACHT
Oil on canvas on board
45 x 80 cm
(With label of the 1992 exhibition on the verso)
(With label of the 1992 exhibition on the verso)
Provenance
Private collection, GermanyExhibitions
Freie Vereinigung Darmstädter Künstler, Mathildenhöhe, 1912 (Cat.nr. 132);Eugen Bracht (1842-1921). Landschaftsmaler im wilhelminischen Kaiserreich. Darmstadt, Mathildenhöhe, 1992 (Cat. nr. 43, as "Vordergrundstudie am Mittelmeer").
Literature
Manfred Großkinsky, Eugen Bracht (1842-1921). Landschaftsmaler im wilhelminischen Kaiserreich, Darmstadt, 1992, pp. 266 (with partly incorrect dimensions given) and 267 (with colour plate ill.).
The German painter Eugen Bracht (1842-1921) was a landscape artist first and foremost. This was perhaps not surprising, given his background as a student at the Karlsruhe Academy between 1859-61 and 1875-77, where he was influenced by the landscape art of J.W. Schirmer and C.F. Lessing, and became friends with Hans Thoma, whose attachment to the landscape of his native Schwarzwald region resonated with Bracht.
Although Bracht evinced an unusual eye for telling natural detail, his slightly academic bent was reinforced by his work as a professor for landscape painting, first in Berlin between 1882-1901 and then in Dresden between 1902-1919. His career consisted of a number of highly accomplished paintings, although his inbred conservatism meant that he never struck out in a truly independent way. For all that, he did veer gingerly towards a German form of impressionism after 1902, and is today often classed alongside German modernist painters like Paul Baum, Theodor Hagen and Walter Leistikow.
Bracht embarked on foreign travel to far-afield places a number of times, including trips to the Orient (visiting Palestine, Jordan and Syria) in 1880/81 and again in 1891. He also made various trips to the Italian Riviera throughout the 1890s, and it was on one such excursion that our oil study was created.
The present oil sketch was made in 1893 when Bracht was visiting Rapallo. The purpose of his oil sketching was to build up a stock of small landscapes, which he could then incorporate into larger pictures for formal sale later. He put an enormous amount of artistic acumen into his oil studies.
Our sketch surprises for its slender simplicity: its radical delineation between the rocky ridge in the foreground contrasts with the little triangle of sea visible in the background. Bracht has taken pains to capture the dryness of the parched lumps of earth and the vegetation. An inspection of the painting up close reveals how he used tiny points of paint to denote the heads of the flowers growing amidst the grasses. The remnants of the little row of rocks has been built up as a strip of little squares.
Bracht incorporated our study years later as part of the landscape detail for a larger painting, which today hangs in the museum in Kassel, Germany [1]. During his lifetime, he was famous in his native country for a number of symbolist paintings, which were much to contemporary taste and were treated in the same breath as proto-symbolist works by the famous Arnold Böcklin. Although his reputation in this respect waned after his death, as popular taste changed, we can still today appreciate his qualities as an artist with a wonderful eye for the slightness of beauty.
Today, Bracht's work can be found in the collections of many German museums.
____________________________
1. "Hannibal's Grave", Neue Galerie, Kassel, Inv. nr. AZ 1981/2. Bracht produced a number of versions of this painting.
Although Bracht evinced an unusual eye for telling natural detail, his slightly academic bent was reinforced by his work as a professor for landscape painting, first in Berlin between 1882-1901 and then in Dresden between 1902-1919. His career consisted of a number of highly accomplished paintings, although his inbred conservatism meant that he never struck out in a truly independent way. For all that, he did veer gingerly towards a German form of impressionism after 1902, and is today often classed alongside German modernist painters like Paul Baum, Theodor Hagen and Walter Leistikow.
Bracht embarked on foreign travel to far-afield places a number of times, including trips to the Orient (visiting Palestine, Jordan and Syria) in 1880/81 and again in 1891. He also made various trips to the Italian Riviera throughout the 1890s, and it was on one such excursion that our oil study was created.
The present oil sketch was made in 1893 when Bracht was visiting Rapallo. The purpose of his oil sketching was to build up a stock of small landscapes, which he could then incorporate into larger pictures for formal sale later. He put an enormous amount of artistic acumen into his oil studies.
Our sketch surprises for its slender simplicity: its radical delineation between the rocky ridge in the foreground contrasts with the little triangle of sea visible in the background. Bracht has taken pains to capture the dryness of the parched lumps of earth and the vegetation. An inspection of the painting up close reveals how he used tiny points of paint to denote the heads of the flowers growing amidst the grasses. The remnants of the little row of rocks has been built up as a strip of little squares.
Bracht incorporated our study years later as part of the landscape detail for a larger painting, which today hangs in the museum in Kassel, Germany [1]. During his lifetime, he was famous in his native country for a number of symbolist paintings, which were much to contemporary taste and were treated in the same breath as proto-symbolist works by the famous Arnold Böcklin. Although his reputation in this respect waned after his death, as popular taste changed, we can still today appreciate his qualities as an artist with a wonderful eye for the slightness of beauty.
Today, Bracht's work can be found in the collections of many German museums.
____________________________
1. "Hannibal's Grave", Neue Galerie, Kassel, Inv. nr. AZ 1981/2. Bracht produced a number of versions of this painting.
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