Sunday, October 15, 2023

Mendelssohn's Watercolors

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) is best known as a composer, but he was also a watercolor painter.


He started keeping a sketchbook at age 13 and produced approximately three hundred artworks throughout his short life. Like most well-education children of his time, he was encouraged to document what he saw in pen and ink and watercolor during his travels with his family through Europe.
 

He created watercolor landscapes during trips to Switzerland, Italy, and Scotland. One of his watercolor depictions is of the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Germany, where he conducted a performance of Luigi Cherubini's opera Ali Baba in 1836. 


The watercolor may have been executed as a memento of the performance or as a betrothal present for soprano Henriette Grabau, who participated in the performance and to whom Mendelssohn gave two autographed, signed letters and two songs he composed.



3 comments:

A_Fan said...

I love Mendelssohn's violin concerto in E minor op.64 and I had no idea he also made such beautiful paintings. It makes me want to learn more about him. I wonder if his learning painting influenced his musical compositions. Thanks for sharing.

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Susan Krzywicki said...

Jeepers, he was really good!