The geologist

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The geologist (Carl Spitzweg)
The geologist
Carl Spitzweg , around 1860
Glue paint on paper on canvas
44 × 34.5 cm
From the Heydt Museum , Wuppertal

The geologist (alternative title: Der Mineraloge ) is a painting by the German painter Carl Spitzweg (1808–1885) from the 1860s. It belongs to the collection of the Von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal , to which it was bequeathed in 1913. Spitzweg's painting style belongs to the late Romantic period . Initially, Spitzweg, who worked in Munich, was still connected to the Biedermeier direction, later his painting style relaxed, very close to Impressionism .

description

The painting shows a gentleman who, according to the title of the painting, is a geologist . He kneels in front of a rock wall and holds a stone in each of his hands that are a little larger than his hands. The geologist takes a closer look at the stone in his left hand, perhaps he has previously hit the two stones against each other in order to cut off a fragment. To his left he has put down an approx. 70 to 80 cm long hackle .

The geologist wears blue trousers and a reddish coat with a darker collar. He wears a thick, beige scarf around his neck with a small piece of his white shirt collar peeking out at the top. He wears a brown hat and a green botany drum that he has strapped on so that it hangs on his back.

In the picture, red-brownish tones predominate, next to the coat of the lie also through the rock walls left and right in the picture. At the place where the geologist kneels, shades of yellow predominate, as if the place was lit by the sun. Green vegetation can sometimes be seen on the bottom and on the rock walls . Despite the geologist's scarf, it doesn't seem like a winter situation.

Spitzweg's work is executed with glue paint on strong paper on canvas and has the portrait format 44 × 34.5 cm. A monogram is on the lower right. It bears the inventory number G 832 of the Wuppertal Von der Heydt Museum.

  • Detail: the geologist

  • Detail: monogram

  • Detail: chop

Other versions

Spitzweg painted the motif "The Geologist" after Günther Roennefahrt four times:

  1. [Roennefahrt Nr. 1418]: Oil on canvas, 50 × 41.5 cm, dated 1854, owned by the Pforzheim City Gallery
  2. [Roennefahrt No. 1419]: Oil on canvas, 48 ​​× 27 cm, Georg Schäfer Collection , Schweinfurt
  3. [Roennefahrt No. 1420]: Oil on canvas, 44 × 34.5 cm, Von der Heydt-Museum
  4. [Roennefahrt Nr. 1421]: Oil on canvas, 34.5 × 29 cm, version not carried out in the details

  • Version 1, Municipal Gallery Pforzheim

  • Version 2, Georg Schäfer Collection

  • Version 3, Von der Heydt-Museum

Hans Dietrich Lang even thinks a fifth version is possible. The second version is a mirror image of the subject. Only the first version is dated 1854. The other works are undated, so one can only assume that they were created in the second half of the 1850s or in the 1860s - as usually stated in the literature. Another source would like to give the year 1863 for the work.

There is also a similar work by Spitzwerg, which is in the catalog raisonné with The Geologist in the Grotto and is from 1882.

Background and origin

According to Hans Dietrich Lang, a steep gorge with a tunnel mouth hole in the Peißenberg coal district near Peißenberg served as a model. Spitzweg often stayed in Peißenberg; during a spa stay in 1833, he made the decision to become a painter. According to Erika Günter, this rock motif is the entrance to a shaft of the Hohe Peißenberg .

Provenance

The provenance of the painting is not fully documented, it is presented as follows: The painting has been in the possession of W. Schauß in New York since 1863. Then it came to Fritz Reimann (1862–1913) in Elberfeld via the Heinemann Gallery in Munich . With Reimann's death in 1913, this and other paintings came into the possession of the Von der Heydt Museum by bequest.

Exhibitions

  • 1929: Galerie Stern, Düsseldorf
  • 2004: From the Heydt Museum, Wuppertal
  • 2017: Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal in the exhibition "More light! Works from the collection"

Web links

Commons : The Geologist  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
  • Carl Spitzweg - "The Geologist": Between Rationality and Nature . In: Westdeutsche Zeitung . March 18, 2017 ( wz.de ).

literature

  • Uta Laxner-Gerlach: Catalog of the paintings of the 19th century . Ed .: Von der Heydt-Museum. Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal 1974, p. 224 .
  • Günther Roennefahrt: Carl Spitzweg. Descriptive directory of his paintings, oil studies, and watercolors . F Bruckmann KG, Munich 1960.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Laxner-Gerlach
  2. ↑ Provenance: as of 1960
  3. ↑ pz-news.de
  4. ^ A b Hans Dietrich Lang: The geologist or mineralogist of the painter CARL SPITZWEG . In: Journal of the German Geological Society . tape 125 , 1974, pp. 5–10 ( excerpt ).
  5. ↑ History of Geology: Art & Geology: Carl Spitzweg's bizarre types. In: blogspot.de. geschichtedergeologie.blogspot.de, accessed on February 11, 2016 .
  6. ↑ Erika Günther: Bildführer: a selection of recent paintings from the Von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal; 19th and 20th century paintings in the Von der Heydt Museum . Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal 1996, ISBN 3-89202-031-0 , p. 263 .
  7. ↑ Carl Spitzweg shows cracks in Biedermeier. In: handelsblatt.com. Retrieved February 11, 2016 .