Brief Report
This painting, dated by Vogt to 1903, but dated by the artist himself “02”(fig. 7), shows a landscape with a view of a town which has not to date been identified, but may be in the vicinity of Weimar [Vogt 1978, cat. no. 293]. The picture was painted at a time when Rohlfs was appointed a professor at the Academy in Weimar and was confronting the works of the French Pointillistes for the first time. He chose a canvas in which the warp and weft yarns alternate in pairs (fig. 11). Known as Panama weave, this is a derivation of the traditional tabby weave, and is comparatively rare in artists’ canvases. In all probability Rohlfs stretched and primed this canvas himself. The pale blue colour of the ground seems to have been chosen deliberately with the intended landscape in view. As a result, in the region of the sky Rohlfs was able to place the dots and short strokes fairly loosely on the canvas and thus incorporate the basic hue of the ground economically into the painting (fig. 11). As for the rest of the landscape, the pale blue of the ground comes across variously in simultaneous contrast with the predominantly pure colours, which likewise may have been intentional on the artist’s part (figs 9, 10). In the landscape, the arrangement, concentration and pastosity of the dots and strokes increase towards the foreground. Interestingly, the paint application in some of the forms depicted, which were previously coarsely underdrawn with a pencil or crayon, comes across as more systematic (figs 9, 10). In paint applications which overlap or even cover each other, mixing, or at least deformation, can be noted in the surfaces of the dabs and strokes, which would not have been completely dry (figs 8, 12). This points to a generally brisk execution of the painting, even though the painting technique forces us to assume a number of working sessions.
Christian Rohlfs
Landscape, 1903, oil on canvas, 62.3 x 77.4 cm, WRM Dep. FC 792
Christian Rohlfs
born on 22 November 1849 in Groß Niendorf, Segeberg,
died on 8 January 1938 in Hagen
Further illustrations:
Fig. 02
Verso
Fig. 03
Raking light
Fig. 04
Transmitted light
Fig. 05
UV fluorescence
Fig. 06
X-ray
Fig. 07
Detail, signature and date
Fig. 08
Black underdrawing lines made with a graphite(?) pencil in the spaces between the paint applications, microscopic photograph
Fig. 09
Evenly structured paint applications in the region of the undulating landscape (slightly raking light), microscopic photograph
Fig. 10
Paint applications varying in size and arrangement, multiply overlapping for the depiction of the haystack in the middle, microscopic photograph
Fig. 11
Detail, right-hand edge of picture, where the original bare turnover edge of the Panamaweave fabric has been pulled into the visible surface
Fig. 12
Wet-in-wet paint applications, juxtaposed and superimposed dots of paint and conspicuous craquelure, starting in the ground but in some places continuing into the paint-layer, microscopic photograph
