1921, Lyonel Feininger, Gross Kromsdorf III -- Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge)
From the museum label: By the late 1910s Feininger’s distinctive cubist-inspired style had made the American painter an important member of the modern art movement in Germany. He was particularly drawn to medieval towns and churches, and while living in Weimar in 1913 he made many sketches of the surrounding villages, including Gross Kromsdorf, the subject of this painting. There is one other known version of this work, which Feininger created in 1915 (Minneapolis Institute of Arts). He made this 1921 painting two years after he returned to Weimar to teach at the newly established Bauhaus school. In both works he flattens space and fractures forms while leaving the architectural elements essentially intact and recognizable. Whereas the earlier painting’s somber palette suggests dusk, the warm colors here evoke afternoon sun. Both paintings illustrate the kind of transformation that inspired Feininger to return to the same subject multiple times, often years after making the original sketch.
1921, Lyonel Feininger, Gross Kromsdorf III -- Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge)
From the museum label: By the late 1910s Feininger’s distinctive cubist-inspired style had made the American painter an important member of the modern art movement in Germany. He was particularly drawn to medieval towns and churches, and while living in Weimar in 1913 he made many sketches of the surrounding villages, including Gross Kromsdorf, the subject of this painting. There is one other known version of this work, which Feininger created in 1915 (Minneapolis Institute of Arts). He made this 1921 painting two years after he returned to Weimar to teach at the newly established Bauhaus school. In both works he flattens space and fractures forms while leaving the architectural elements essentially intact and recognizable. Whereas the earlier painting’s somber palette suggests dusk, the warm colors here evoke afternoon sun. Both paintings illustrate the kind of transformation that inspired Feininger to return to the same subject multiple times, often years after making the original sketch.