Manfred K. Schwitteck

Still life with fish bones, pencil and pencil sharpener

1992

Paul Friedrich Meyerheim (1842 Berlin - 1915 ibid.). Sketch of a female torso with hands and an umbrella. Pencil on paper, 27.5 x 22.5 cm (visible size)...

Hans Richard von Volkmann (1860 Halle (Saale) - 1927 ibid.), Clay jug on a bench. Pencil and Watercolour on paper. 20 x 26,7 cm (visible size), 37 x 45 cm (frame), dated and monogrammed lower left "Februar 1890 - HR. V. V." - Minimally tanned. Framed behind glass in a passepartout. About the artwork Using the technique of his early youth - pencil and watercolour - Hans Richard von Volkmann depicts a still life. However, this is not a conventional indoor still life, but an open-air depiction, painted outdoors and not in the studio. It is therefore an open-air painting, characteristic of von Volkmann's oeuvre, which could have been painted in the Willingshausen colony of painters, where open-air painting was programmatically practised there and the artist stayed there that year. And indeed, this painting is a manifesto of open-air painting. Von Volkmann demonstrates that leaving the studio for the light of nature leads to an entirely new quality of art. To prove this, he uses the genre of still life, which can be described as the studio subject par excellence. Moreover, light plays an essential role in the classical still life. It is the real protagonist of the still life. And it is precisely this moment, essential to the still life, that von Volkmann exploits to demonstrate the potential of plein-air painting: He presents the objects as they appear in the sunlight. The date of February and the bare branches in the foreground make it clear that this is a clear winter day in bright sunlight. The delicate plant in the foreground casts a clearly defined shadow, as does the jug. However, the shadow is most pronounced on the jug itself: The underside of the handle appears almost black, making the top, and therefore the jug itself, shine all the more brightly. The shining of the objects in the sunlight is also visible on the bench. As complementary phenomena to the shadow zones, light edges can be seen on the boards of the seats and the upper foot of the bench shines entirely in the light. To achieve this intensity of light, von Volkmann activated the bright white of the painting ground. By depicting the objects in glistening sunlight, von Volkmann demonstrates that this quality of light is only to be found outdoors. And this light leads to a new way of looking at the objects themselves. The jug on the bench seems like an accidental arrangement, as if the artist had stumbled upon this unintentional still life and captured it with fascination. And in this fascination there is a moment of realisation that refers to the objects themselves. It is only when they shine brightly in the sunlight that their true nature is revealed. In this way, sunlight allows the objects to come into their own, so to speak. Sunlight, which is not present in the studio, gives the still life an entirely new dimension of reality, which is also reflected in the colours interwoven by the sunlight: The bench and the jug stand in a harmonious grey-pink contrast to the green of the implied meadow. The emphasis on the jug as the central subject of the picture also implies that the watercolour has not been completed. This non finito inscribes a processuality into the picture, making it clear that something processual has been depicted, the temporality of which has been made artistically permanent. This is why von Volkmann signed the painting and dated it to the month. About the Artist Von Volkmann made his first artistic attempts at the age of 14. He painted many watercolours of his home town of Halle. This laid the foundation for his later outdoor painting. In 1880 his autodidactic beginnings were professionalised with his admission to the Düsseldorf Art Academy. There he studied under Hugo Crola, Heinrich Lauenstein, Johann Peter Theodor Janssen and Eduard von Gebhardt until 1888. Von Volkmann then moved to the Karlsruhe Academy, where he was Gustav Schönleber's master pupil until 1892. In 1883 he came for the first time to Willingshausen, Germany's oldest painters' colony, at the suggestion of his student friend Adolf Lins...

Alexander Frenz (1861 Rheydt - 1941 Düsseldorf). Plant impression in Locarno. Gouache and watercolour. 35 x 23,5 cm (visible size), 49,5 x 38,5 cm (fra...

Johannes Friedrich Heinrich Hänsch (1875-1945), Red blooming war landscape with dead soldier, 1918. Watercolor and gouache on paper, 15 x 24.5 cm (image), 27 x 37 cm (sheet size / frame), monogrammed and dated "19JH18" at lower left. - Paper slightly darkened About the artwork Despite the relatively small format, the watercolor with an internal frame depicts a panoramic view of a flat landscape stretching to the horizon. As far as the eye can see, the poppies bloom in flaming red. The flowers are not rendered individually, however, creating an almost cohesive red surface. The bright red is interspersed with vegetal green. A complementary contrast that creates an intense color effect. In this color contrast, a white area breaks through from the middle ground, widening towards the foreground and surrounding a brown hole. Next to it, in blue, is the actual protagonist of the painting, the first thing that catches the eye: a dead soldier. Next to him is his helmet, revealing the empty interior. The brown, hollow shape corresponds to the hole in the ground. A shell funnel is surrounded by bright ash, which, like the inverted helmet, becomes a sign of death. The soldier's arms point to the funnel, while the empty helmet paraphrases the calotte of the skull and, like the funnel, thematizes the empty darkness of death. The soldier's body, however, is intact and not - as in Otto Dix's triptych "The War" - a dismembered corpse. Instead, Johannes Hänsch activates the landscape, especially the color, to illustrate a blooming landscape of death that extends from the shell funnel in the foreground to the rising column of smoke on the horizon. If the soldier's body is intact, the tangle of barbed wire emblematically placed over the empty helmet also appears tattered. On the right side of the picture, the barbed wire even seems to stretch its arms to the sky in horror. Against the background of this allegory, the content of the bright red also becomes clear: the landscape is drenched in blood, literally a sea of blood, and the single unknown soldier stands pars pro toto for all those who died on the battlefield. Dying in war is not dying in community, but in solitude. In order to emphasize the isolation in death, Johannes Hänsch has set the blue of the soldier in the axis given by his body in the middle ground of the picture into the red sea. A master of landscape painting, Hänsch succeeds in creating a natural-looking landscape allegory that illustrates the horror and death of war, without depicting the brutality of war itself. This singular 'war memorial' of the unknown soldier is the opposite of heroization and yet the dignity of the deceased soldier is preserved through the integrity of his body. About the artist As the son of the sculptor Adolf Haensch, the young Johannes received his first artistic training in his father's Berlin studio. However, he eventually decided to become a painter, and in 1897 he entered the Berlin Academy of Arts. He initially studied under Paul Vorgang and Eugen Bracht, and was particularly influenced by Bracht's increasingly colourful landscape painting. In 1901 he moved to the class of Friedrich Kallmorgen, with whom he spent several weeks on excursions into nature. In 1905 he became a master pupil of Albert Hertel, who taught him watercolour painting. From 1903 to 1933 he exhibited annually at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition, the exhibitions of the Berlin Artists' Association and the Munich Glaspalast. In 1905 he was awarded the Carl Blechen...

Shiri Mordechay's paintings are a whirlwind of emotion and complexity, drawing the viewer into a vibrant and dynamic world. Each piece is packed with countless details, your eyes are...

Drawings of skulls are often called vanitas, which often contain collections of objects symbolic of the inevitability of death and the transience and vanity of earthly achievements and pleasures; it exhorts the viewer to consider mortality and to repent. This still life vanitas drawing is matted with a heavy white mat and framed in a bronze toned wooden frame measuring 15.75 x 16.25 inches. John Hrehov Skull and Ornament colored pencil on paper 7h x 8w in 17.78h x 20.32w cm JHR006 John Hrehov Education 1985 MFA-Painting, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 1981 BFA-Painting, Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH. Solo Exhibitions 2017 John Hrehov, Paintings and Drawings. Tom Thomas...

Salvador Dalí Mandolin, ca. 1930 Graphite on paper 6 × 8 in l 15.2 × 20.3 cm Frame included - 11 x 13 in l 28 x 33 cm The authenticity of this artwork has been confirmed by Mr. Desc...

Four pencil drawings, each with hand coloring in watercolor, each 6 3/4 x 10 inches (sheet) (172 x 254 mm), full margins. Each with inscriptions and notations by the artist in the up...