Philipp Otto Runge

Fingal Illustrations

1804-5

o  Fingal= Father of Ossian, mythical Scottish warrior 

o   Basis for print series he was going to produce

o   Looking to Flaxman- contour drawings, absence of internal modeling, linearity,

o   Also associated with Ancient Greek vase painting

Philipp Otto Runge

Huelsenbeck Children

1805-06

o   Figure painting- not primarily a landscape painter

o   Friends of family

o   Children seem more serious and adult like because we are looking from below

o   But still look like children so weird perspective

o   Green boy looks authoritative, is going to become leader, domineering, holding whip about to bring it down

o   Gigantic sunflowers- know to turn toward the sun, metaphors of growth and development

o   Laying out of village behind and the fence is in perfect perspective, brilliant light

o   Children will grow tall just like the sunflowers

Philipp Otto Runge

Morning

1808

o   Nude figure in middle- aurora- rising from the horizon 

o   Above her is putti (cherubs) on a calla lily and in the flower itself are children without wings

o   Above that are seraphs (angels without bodies)- if it was a Christian image, you might have god the father, in the middle- holy spirit, bottom- Mary and child

§  Pagan interpretation

o   Like a page from a illuminated manuscript- within the frame there are motifs and stuff within the boarder (like a manuscript)

§  Like the illuminated book of Hours

·      Tells you what prayers should be said when and on what day, etc.

§  Revivalism- Gothic- self-consciously reviving cultures of the past, thinking it was a time better than the present

·      Medieval= intense faith and religion, against classicism and secularism, want connection between human and nature and human and God.

o   Symmetrical, order

o   Newborn child in the foreground- like a Christ child , but not a known story

§  Discovery of the child in nature that is like a savior (Moses, Christ)

o   Rejects Christianity as a law but a doctrine of love

o   National and individual rebirth

Friedrich Overbeck

Portrait of Franz Pforr

1810

o   Overbeck was active in Munich and traveled to Rome and studied there with Pforr

o   Van Eyck and Flemish Primitives= inspiration

§  Gothic northern background

§  Allegories of the different symbols

·      Cat, grape vines, sewing women, lilies (virgin Mary)

o   Italian Renaissance painting- format of half figure in a window (common format)

o   Turning away from modernity and looking at a period of greater faith (early Renaissance)

Franz Pforr

Shulamit and Maria

1810-11

-Pforr separates the Italian and the German worlds, the Old and the New Testament. 

-diptych (an object with two flat plates attached at a hinge) 

Friedrich Overbeck

Italia and Germania

1811-28

o   Marriage of North and South- marry Flemish (Dutch) and German art with early Renaissance Italian painting

o   Overbeck and Pforr are known as the Nazarenes because they wore long hair and constituted the beginning of an artistic subculture- segregated themselves from other artists, dressed and spoke the part= avant-garde but looking backward to the past for inspiration

o   After the fall of Napoleon, their art was embraced by reactionary forces who wanted to restore monarchies, not those who wanted to create democracies

Friedrich Overbeck

The Triumph of Religion in Art

1831-40

-typical of the Nazarene movement 

 Caspar David Friedrich

Abbey in the Oak Forest

1809-10

o   Church and the Abbey are competing for the subject matter 

o   Oak tree= antiquity, growth, crucifixes, character of nature as a source for faith, nature triumph over organized religion, last longer than the Abbey

 Caspar David Friedrich

Monk by the Sea

1809-10

o   Nature and landscape         

§  Leading artistic genre

§  Unity with nature-rooted with a land= emerging nationalism

·      Lead to fascism 100 years later (but not as vicious in this era)

§  Yearning for unity of land and people and nature

o   Natural philosophy- science of physics- underlying principles of nature

§  Study of color and light and motion

o   Natural theology- god is a artificer and creator and scientist himself,  manifestation of his genius in nature

§  Watch-maker analogy- proof of God- nature like a watch and thus nature must have a watch-maker

o   Figure who has walked to the end of the Baltic and is gazing out

§  Gap between humans and nature- a distance and a yearning to be part of this immense power

§  Blend together individual subject and the natural world- subject and object- I am different from this thing but I am part of this thing

§  Human as creative person by God and by nature. Are we part of nature? How can I bridge that gap and become part of the land and sea?

·      Nationalistic tendencies

·      Show our own separateness and power from invasion from abroad. How to bridge the distance and become part of this

·      Intense drive for the sublime

o   Contemplation of immensity

§  Pleasure and anxiety

§  Viewer becomes the monk and we feel the same yearning to be part of nature

·      People would go out to nature at this time period and try to bridge this gap

 Caspar David Friedrich

Large Enclosure Near Dresden

1832

o   Like wide angle lenses- planetary view

o   Artist as a scientist

§  Landscape as a branch of natural philosophy

Friedrich

Cross in the Mountains

1808

• Made as an altarpiece
• Frame designed by Friedrich
• Made out of wood
•   Altar piece
• Generally have the stories of Christ but here we have an landscape with a cross
• Pagan idea- all seeing eye of God but approach and worship the land and landscape

•  

  o   Wrapped in a frame- grapes and wheat= fertility of earth

  o   Metaphors of light- from sunrise- illuminates sky and casts light on Christ

 Caspar David Friedrich

Winter Landscape

 c.1811

o   Crucifix, pine tree, gothic church

o Gothic=greatest unity of community and its faith and religious belief

o   Use landscape to do the work of history painting

§  All the depth and complexity of a history painting