Bowdoin College Museum of Art | - Mann in Landschaft (Man with Landscape)

Preview image of work. charcoal on cream laid paper, Mann in Landschaft (Man with Landscape) 21273

2011.37

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Mann in Landschaft (Man with Landscape)

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Artist

Wilhelm Morgner (Soest, Germany, 1/27/1891 - 8/16/1917, Langemarck, Germany)

Title

Mann in Landschaft (Man with Landscape)

Creation Date

1913

Century

early 20th century

Dimensions

18 5/8 in. x 24 13/16 in. (47.31 cm x 63.02 cm)

Object Type

drawing

Creation Place

Europe, Germany

Medium and Support

charcoal on cream laid paper

Credit Line

Museum Purchase, Lloyd O. and Marjorie Strong Coulter Fund

Copyright

Public Domain

Accession Number

2011.37

Wilhelm Morgner, a student of Georg Tappert (1880--1957), connected through his teacher with the pre-World War I art scene in Berlin. Franz Marc (1880--1916) and Vassily Kandinsky (1866--1944) invited Morgner to exhibit with the Blue Rider group, and this association not only opened many more doors to the young artist, it also deeply influenced his work. Combining the view of a miner at work with a panoramic mountain landscape and a cosmic vision, this drawing expresses Morgner’s view of the human condition. Characteristically, he chose not to draw the harbinger of the coming spiritual age, Kandinsky’s beloved blue rider, but the laborer, who toils away unseen. Morgner was drafted in 1913 and killed in action shortly after; Tappert rescued his work from oblivion. In retrospect, it has proven impossible to see Morgner’s ecstatic landscapes as anything other than a foreshadowing of the tragedy of modern warfare.