Artwork of the Month:
August Macke, Paar im Nachen, 1913
Video
Born in 1887, Macke is one of the most popular German artists of the 20th century.
His diverse artistic oeuvre, created in just a few years, includes oil paintings, watercolors and drawings and is characterized by a great variety of motifs. In addition to lively urban scenes, there are also carefully arranged still lifes, moving compositions of groups of people and posing nudes or, as in our example, beautiful landscapes that show people in harmony with nature.
Artwork of the Month: August Macke, Paar im Nachen, 1913
A moment of stillness.
Two figures in a boat – embedded in a landscape that feels more sensed than seen.
Color dissolves form, perspective loses its grip. What remains is a sense of movement, light, and closeness.
In this work, August Macke captures not just a scene – but a state of mind: the harmony between human and nature.
It was created shortly before the war, during one of the last joyful moments in the artist's life.
In 1913, he and his family moved to Lake Thun in Switzerland. An attempt to escape the busy art world and concentrate on his own work.
The most important pictures in his oeuvre were created here.
This harmonious period ends when he was called up for military service. He died at the front just one year later at the age of 27.