.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The motif of wooded, mountainous landscapes, often populated by courting couples on a pathway, is one that appears with great frequency in Spitzweg's work. The male figure, preceded here by his dog who welcomes the woman waiting by the well, is typically identified as a hunter.
The mountain landscape had a long tradition in German Romantic art, and Spitzweg was able to manipulate this traditional pictorial context to a variety of different effects. The emphasis on a bucolic idyll in the present work is quite different to Spitzweg's superficially similar, but ultimately ironic, depictions of urban day-trippers to the mountains.
Spitzweg, who had a strong interest in geology and nature, made frequent trips to the Austrian and Bavarain Alps, filling his sketchbooks as he went. He later worked these up into dramatic, stage- like compositions, in which a central figure -- as in the present work -- appears almost spotlit against a mottled forest background.
The mountain landscape had a long tradition in German Romantic art, and Spitzweg was able to manipulate this traditional pictorial context to a variety of different effects. The emphasis on a bucolic idyll in the present work is quite different to Spitzweg's superficially similar, but ultimately ironic, depictions of urban day-trippers to the mountains.
Spitzweg, who had a strong interest in geology and nature, made frequent trips to the Austrian and Bavarain Alps, filling his sketchbooks as he went. He later worked these up into dramatic, stage- like compositions, in which a central figure -- as in the present work -- appears almost spotlit against a mottled forest background.