Longing landscapes

Longing landscapes
Drawings of the Romantic Era on the Occasion of the 100th Anniversary of the Graphic Collection

In 1923 a Graphic Art Collection was inaugurated at the municipal museum in the form of a so-called Graphics Cabinet complete with study room. The collection’s 100^th anniversary offers the occasion to present an exquisite selection from the almost unknown treasure-trove of late 18^th and 19^th century drawings on the theme of landscape. In this exhibition 100 pencil, pen-and-ink and wash drawings as well as watercolours illustrate the great diversity of impressions of nature, of ideal landscapes, tree studies, forest idylls, of motifs from Saxony and popular travel destinations at the time, like Italy, Bohemia, and of the uncanny world of the Alps. Sketches by Johann Christian Clausen Dahl are on show alongside highly detailed landscape depictions by Ferdinand Olivier und Carl Robert Kummer. Sheets by Carl Gustav Carus show atmospheric moonlit scenes. Yet another theme prevalent in the Romantic era was technology and the nascent industrialisation, evident, for example, in a depiction of mining by Traugott Faber. The exhibition is the fruit of an in-depth investigation of these so far little heeded holdings of graphic art on the occasion of the Spring of Graphic Art on their 100^th anniversy in 2023.

Industrialisation has made profound changes in the appearance of landscapes today and has also shaped our relationship to nature. Works by the contemporary artists Nora Mona Bach, Britta Lumer, Kerstin Skringer and Clemens Tremmel underscore the topicality of the landscape through their view of nature.