Friday, February 5, 2021

Eugen Bracht's Dramatic Landscapes

Eugen Bracht (1842 – 1921) was a German landscape painter known for his dramatic mountainscapes. But he also painted vistas of wide-open plains. 

Eugen Bracht, Matterhorn

He painted the Matterhorn many times in various lighting conditions. This one is front-lit, normally a difficult lighting arrangement to pull off. The reflection is neatly placed in the pool of glacial meltwater.


He also found drama in less dramatic motifs, open meadows or heathlands in brooding, cloudy weather.


Although his origins as a painter were academic, Bracht was receptive to impressionist ideas, and he painted scenes like this in the open air.


When he painted scenes from the Near East and north Africa, he liked to interpret the scope and scale of the landscape.


His forest studies explored ways to simplify the immense complexity of the subject, sometimes using mist and atmosphere and broadly applied strokes of paint. 

Hoesch iron and steel works, Dortmund 1907

After 1900 he became interested in the moods of the industrial landscape.
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3 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm not familiar with this artist's work, James. I like his use of natural looking, earth colours. Quite the tonalist.

Karl Smith said...

Thanks for introducing me to another great alpine painter James. I think, though, that the first painting is by someone else you featured a while back- Edward Theodore Compton. It's of the west face of the Matterhorn, taken from the Dent d'Herens; a pretty challenging climb but Compton was a skilled mountaineer. Bot Compton and Bracht lived/studied in Darmstadt, I wonder if they met?

James Gurney said...

Thanks, Karl, I took out that first Compton picture.
I should have known because I featured Compton on an earlier post: https://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2018/02/e-t-comptons-mountainscapes.html