Unlike the reverence for Ancient Greece and Rome under Classicism, in the late 18th century a new enthusiasm arose for an idealized Middle Ages, which was felt to visualize the national tradition. Above all, the depiction of the ruins of Gothic churches, with nature rapidly reclaiming them, visualized the tension between decay and the emergence of the new. Blechen intensifies the refined subdivisions of the masses and the light-suffused Gothic religious edifice in his watercolour: The fragments of the ribbed vaults and pointed arches are filled with brightness and the luminescent colours of the surrounding nature. Unlike C. D. Friedrich’s landscapes with ruins dating from the same period, Blechen’s pieces are not intended to leave us contemplatively pondering religion. Blechen’s fictitious scenes are defined by a stage-setlike composition and staging. Moreover, his trip to Italy in 1828-9 lent his style a new realism, with an emphasis on colours and the effects of light. (Sophia Stang)
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