Jul 21 – Sep 24, 2022
Gallery Ludorff Königsallee 22 Dusseldorf
"I love to see the summer beaming forth...."
John Clare
In the middle of the 19th century, British writer John Clare wrote what is probably one of the most beautiful summer poems in literary history.
We have taken the good weather as an opportunity and conceived a small exhibition around Clare's poem "Sonnet" (1841). You can visit the show during the summer month in our gallery. We are looking forward to your visit!
I love to see the summer beaming forth
And white wool sack clouds sailing to the north
I love to see the wild flowers come again
And mare blobs stain with gold the meadow drain
And water lilies whiten on the floods
Where reed clumps rustle like a wind shook wood
Where from her hiding place the Moor Hen pushes
And seeks her flag nest floating in bull rushes
I like the willow leaning half way o’er
The clear deep lake to stand upon its shore
I love the hay grass when the flower head swings
To summer winds and insects happy wings
That sport about the meadow the bright day
And see bright beetles in the clear lake play
Around the poem we assembled summerly works by Josef Albers, Lovis Corinth and Max Ernst, Lyonel Feininger, Klaus Fußmann and Hermann Hesse, as well as works by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Max Liebermann, Emil Nolde and many more. Have fun browsing!
"I love to see the summer beaming forth
And white wool sack clouds sailing to the north..."
Just as bright as the sun on a warm summer's day, this is how Josef Albers' work on the right presents itself to us. The effect of color, form, lines and surfaces on optical perception kept the German-American artist fascinated throughout his artistic career.
Composed of three or four colored squares arranged one inside the other, his works demonstrate that the effect of color does depend on the surrounding space.
In the oeuvre of Klaus Fußmann, landscapes and flowers are central themes. Whether as expressive watercolor, delicate pastel or powerful pastose oil painting - his work convinces with impressive poetic. The colors and painting celebrating representation of the world through the eyes of the artist.
Fußmann's landscapes are characterized by open fields and the sea. They allow us to relive and feel the rough air, the rolling waves and clouds, the bright yellow of the rape and the fresh blue of the sky, but above all the special light of the sea.
...I love to see the wild flowers come again
And mare blobs stain with gold the meadow drain...
In 1901, 21-year-old art student Charlotte Berend introduced herself to Lovis Corinth to join his painting school. Only three years later, the two married. Several portraits of Charlotte by Corinth bear witness to their extraordinary happy relationship. The paintings thus not only have a biographical character, but also an immensely intimate expressiveness, which makes them touching testimonies of one of the probably most fulfilling love relationships between two artists in the 20th century.
Emil Nole's is a master of color. Following the ideal of Expressionism, he succeeds in living in unity with art in his residence and studio house built on the Baltic coast in Seebüll. Here, he created many of his famous watercolors, such as this one, which shows a beautiful flowerage in red and purple tones.
...And water lilies whiten on the floods
Where reed clumps rustle like a wind shook wood
Where from her hiding place the Moor Hen pushes
And seeks her flag nest floating in bull rushes...
The following work by the Brücke artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner shows a summer view of the Müggelsee. The perspective is chosen from above. The angle of view allows to capture both the hustle and bustle on the lake, as well as the surrounding shore with its vegetation. The unerringly used complementary contrasts, provide the watercolor with a very special tension...
...I like the willow leaning half way o’er
he clear deep lake to stand upon its shore...
Max Liebermann painted "Gartenlokal an der Havel" in the summer of 1932. The garden restaurant was located directly on the shore of the lake just a few houses away from the Liebermann Villa.
The Berlin artist had discovered the theme of garden pubs and cafés about fifty years earlier, in the beer gardens in and around Munich.
In our painting, the Berlin audience enjoys the summer and the expansive view:
In the center foreground, three women in straw hats, seated around a table in conversation; to the left, another woman, her arm resting loosely on the back of a chair next to her; to the right, in profile, a man in a dark suit. Behind them, the faces and figures of dozens of other guests merge into a shimmering riot of color. In the background, the bay stretches out, covered with sailboats. The light blue sky, with its orange-tinged clouds, conveys the sweltering heat of the day.
In Erich Heckel's small watercolor "The Red House" one seems to literally hear the insects, the small beetles and crickets, as they buzz and chirp in the green meadow in front of the crimson farmhouse. The architecture of the house as well as the rural landscape indicate that the work was probably created on the Flensburg Fjord, where Heckel spent the summer months between 1922 and 1925. The painter, who throughout his life was always drawn to the Baltic Sea, manages in our beautiful paper work not only to capture a natural reproduction of the Schleswigholstein region, but at the same time to bring the peculiar, gentle-tart character of this stretch of land to display.
...I love the hay grass when the flower head swings
To summer winds and
insects happy wings...
Few people know that Hermann Hesse was not only a writer but also an artist. He began painting autodidactically only at the age of 40, but in the following years he created an extensive oeuvre of color-intensive, small-format watercolors as well as poetry illustrations. Thematically, he concentrated on landscape depictions of his adopted Italian home in Ticino. In 1919, the artist settled in the village of Montagnola, above Lake Lugano. Here, he created beautiful, summery pencil sketches and small watercolors of the surroundings.
