Artist: Schinkel
Museum: Kupferstichkabinett (Berlin, Germany)
Technique: Print
Behind a cluster of old trees, beneath which are dotted a number of gravestones, looms a view composed of large sections of a church built in the late-Gothic style: the building’s façade, adorned with sculptures, tapers delicately downwards to the right, and at its centre features what can just be identified as a rose window. The upper storey of a richly articulated tower is also visible, including the lower portion of a similarly ornate spire, the full height of which extends well beyond the picture’s upper-left border. A woman accompanied by a child, and three figures walking up the steps, make their way towards the church’s main entrance. This depiction certainly attests to Schinkel’s affinity with early Romantic ideas. However, in contrast to such figures as Caspar David Friedrich, Schinkel does not transfigure the architectural subject into a mere feature of the surrounding landscape either by depicting the church as a ruin, or subordinating it to the atmospheric mood of the work. On the contrary, the façade and tower are very much integral features of the work, pars pro toto, with every detail of their segmented structure and ornamentation clear for the eye to see – as vividly defined as when newly built.
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