Rural Landscape in the Mark Brandenburg

Blechen often went on excursions to the Mark Brandenburg, a rural area near Berlin, to sketch outdoors from nature. His quick, impulsive drawing style, which combines emphatic graphite lines with broadly applied brown wash, reflects his tendency to invest landscapes with intense emotions and states of mind. Melancholic by temperament, Blechen saw his mental health deteriorate in the 1830s, ultimately forcing him to resign from his post as professor of landscape painting at the Berlin Academy.