In search of traces. Man and the landscape / Auf Spurensuche. Der Mensch und die Landschaft

“Back to nature” was the motto of the Barbizon painters. This idea spread like wildfire throughout the European world as landscape painters searched for new forms of expression and motifs in the second half of the 19th century. They followed the guiding principle: “Nature is the best teacher”. All these ideas were realised in the newly established artists’ colonies. In search of unspoilt nature, the artists now explored their surroundings. However, if you look closely at their paintings, you can already see traces of human activity in the seemingly intact landscapes. As industrialisation progressed, the ‘idyllic’ landscapes were pushed further and further back. The artistic view of the landscape also changed over the course of the 20th century. Increasingly, the ‘legacies’ of man dominated and one had to look for traces of nature in the pictures.
The exhibition documents this development with pictures by Dachau painters from their own collection and those from the Baltic Sea artists’ colonies of Schwaan and Ahrenshoop.

https://dachauer-galerien-museen.de/

Image: Carl Leopold Voss (1856-1921), Chiemsee shore, oil on canvas laminated on painting board, Gemäldegalerie Dachau / City of Dachau