Walker at the fountain in the spa garden in Kissingen
Adolph von Menzel , 1885
17.7 × 11.6 cm
gouache on paper
National Museum Warsaw
Walker at the fountain in the spa garden in Kissingen is the title of a picture by Adolph von Menzel painted in 1885 . The work, executed as gouache on paper, is 17.7 cm high and 11.6 cm wide. It shows a summer garden scene in Bad Kissingen , in which Menzel approached the contemporary images of French Impressionism in terms of motif and painting style . The picture is in the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw .
Image description
The portrait, executed as gouache on paper, shows a peaceful and unspectacular scene on a summer's day in Bad Kissingen. From an elevated point of view, the view is directed towards part of the spa garden. A sandy path diagonally connects the lower left corner with the upper right corner. In the center of the picture, the path encircles a round fountain with an unadorned stone setting. A small fountain sprays in the water-filled pool. Flower beds border the path with a multitude of densely packed colorful flowers in red, blue, white and purple. Particularly with these flowers and leaves, a brush application of small dots of color shows up, which is similar to the painting style of the French open-air painting of Menzel's contemporaries. In addition to the flower beds, there are green lawns on the lower right and upper left. In the lower left corner, the branches of a tree with green leaves extend into the picture and partially cover the path. Another tree is on the right above the well. It has a thin trunk and only the lower part of its foliage can be seen, the rest of the tree is cut off from the upper edge of the picture. This tree casts its brown shadow on the areas above the fountain. Another path runs parallel to the upper edge of the picture as a horizon line, which is also lined with trees and flowers.
Menzel has equipped the garden view with all kinds of staff, which gives the composition, which is characterized by geometric shapes, lively elements. To the left above the fountain a lady is walking in the shade, portrayed from the side in lost profile. She has tilted her head forward and is studying a piece of paper in her right hand. This could be a letter, but an event sheet would also be conceivable for a spa town. Over the left shoulder facing away from the viewer, she has placed an opened parasol, the dark red fabric of which is set off with a white border. The screen fills the space behind your back and neck. On her head the lady wears a yellowish cap with decorative red ribbons. The headgear leaves large parts free at the back of the head, so that the woman's dark hair is visible here. Her two-part dress consists of a long-sleeved dark blue top with a narrow waist and a floor-length skirt that is gathered several times, especially at the buttocks. The skirt, made of pink fabric, is set off with several red ribbons. Opposite the lady at the lower right edge of the fountain is a medium-sized dog with black and white fur from the side. While he supports himself with his hind paws in front of the fountain, the left front paw is already over the edge of the fountain and the head protrudes into the fountain - the dog is probably drinking from the water. In the lower right corner of the picture, a cat with dark fur is stretched out on the lawn. In addition, two sparrows have settled on the footpath at the top right. The lady and the various animals in the picture do not refer to each other, but exist peacefully side by side. Menzel used the view out of the window less to reproduce a concrete observation and to tell a story, but to deal intensively with the topics of light and color. The gouache is signed and dated on the lower edge of the picture in the area of the lawn with “Menzel 85 Kissingen”.
Menzel in Kissingen
Menzel was repeatedly guests in Bad Kissingen with his sister's family, especially after the death of his brother-in-law in 1880. In 1889, he described himself as a “non-spa guest” in the city's Golden Book, thereby emphasizing his special role as an observer and artist. Menzel regularly lived in the Villa Hailmann at Kurhausstrasse 3 (today: Martin-Luther-Strasse 9). From one room of this villa he directed his gaze into the spa garden, as can be seen in the picture Walker at the fountain in the spa garden in Kissingen . The view out of the window is a recurring motif in Menzel's work and can already be found, for example, in the Berlin motifs Hinterhaus and Hof from 1844 or the palace garden of Prince Albrecht from 1846/1876 (both National Gallery in Berlin).
Menzel drew other views of the spa garden in pencil during a stay in 1886 ( spa garden in Kissingen , spa garden in Kissingen at night , both in Berlin's Kupferstichkabinett ). Paths and a fountain can also be seen in these pictures, but neither people nor animals populate the scene. Color does not play a role in these drawings, but Menzel dealt with the representation of light conditions at different times of the day. In other pictures from Kissingen, Menzel showed the lively goings-on in the spa town. He portrayed children playing and other spa guests in the Gouache Coffee Time in Kissingen (private collection) from 1886 and in the colorful gouache breakfast buffet of the fine bakery in Kissingen (private collection) from 1893, he dedicated himself to a swarm of people who are busy in a variety of ways. These richly populated pictures represent a thematic counterpoint to the walker in the spa garden.
Adolph von Menzel:
Secret Annex and Courtyard , 1844
Adolph von Menzel:
Prince Albrecht's palace garden, 1846/1876
Adolph von Menzel:
Kurgarten in Kissingen , pencil drawing, 1886
Adolph von Menzel:
Breakfast buffet of the fine bakery in Kissingen , 1893
Provenance
The gouache walker at the fountain in the spa garden in Kissingen came into the collection of the Wroclaw entrepreneur Heinrich von Korn in 1885 . He donated the picture to the Silesian Museum of Fine Arts in 1905 . After the museum's holdings were relocated and the museum building was destroyed in World War II , the Polish authorities moved the picture to the National Museum in Warsaw in 1946, and it has been part of its collection ever since.
literature
- Claude Keisch, Marie Ursula Riemann-Reyher (ed.): Adolph Menzel 1815–1905, the labyrinth of reality . Exhibition catalog Paris, Washington, DC and Berlin, DuMont, Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-7701-3704-3 .
- Werner Busch : Adolph Menzel, In Search of Reality . Beck, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-406-68090-8 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ The information on the size of the picture comes from the online database of the National Museum in Warsaw - see web links. Deviating there are the dimensions 18 × 11.8 cm in Werner Busch: Adolph Menzel, In search of reality , p. 216.
- ↑ a b c d Claude Keisch, Marie Ursula Riemann-Reyher (ed.): Adolph Menzel 1815–1905, the labyrinth of reality , pp. 325–326.
- ↑ Werner Busch: Adolph Menzel, In Search of Reality , p. 215.