DOI issue:
No. 64 (June, 1902)
DOI article:Singer, Hans Wolfgang: A german painter: Robert Sterl
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22773#0259
Robert Sterl
not interest us particularly. The subject as a
story has no claim upon us. But we see a
type of humanity, stripped of its realism, elevated
to a stage of simplicity that enables it to figure
by the side of the heroes of history and the
saints of faith as a subject for art, when pre-
sented as seen with the eye of an individual
creative soul.
In creating the type I think Sterl has so far been
more successful than in presenting it. I mean to
say that his “poor folk” are not subject to the
strictures hinted at above, but he has not always
succeeded in making them serve the special pur-
poses that underlie a single picture. This is rather
a matter of technique in his case. For example,
be desires to tune our spirits to a particular chord
that the vision of a twilight strikes in us. He can
do so in pure landscape better than in his large
hgure paintings, although there the “ poor folk ”
stay have been introduced for the very purpose of
strengthening the impression. It is, indeed, in
Pure landscape that Sterl has done his best work
down till now.
He generally adheres strictly to the skeleton of
nature ; in other words, as far as form is concerned,
he copies what he sees before him. He does not
compose or construe in order to counterpoise light
and shade. What he adds to nature lies in the
direction of lowering the general tone and of
eliminating detail. Like all true artists he simpli-
fies. The meadow that in reality is full of hetero-
geneous light and colour is to him nothing but
one more or less flat tone which he balances
against equally simple ones of the sky and of
the woods. The brushwork is bold and straight-
forward. This broad, sound style of landscape art
is not, oi course, distinctively Sterl’s own; but it is
a fine one to follow, and what he has created in it
is so far his most fascinating work.
I say “ so far,” because the produce of his
last year’s labour, from which all the examples
here reproduced are gleaned, show him to have
other aims in view besides. Sterl saw the light of
day (on the 23rd of June, 1867, by the way) at
Grossdobritz; so he is Saxon-born, and remains
true to his mother country inasmuch as he has
The
village cobbler
BY ROBERT STERL
239
not interest us particularly. The subject as a
story has no claim upon us. But we see a
type of humanity, stripped of its realism, elevated
to a stage of simplicity that enables it to figure
by the side of the heroes of history and the
saints of faith as a subject for art, when pre-
sented as seen with the eye of an individual
creative soul.
In creating the type I think Sterl has so far been
more successful than in presenting it. I mean to
say that his “poor folk” are not subject to the
strictures hinted at above, but he has not always
succeeded in making them serve the special pur-
poses that underlie a single picture. This is rather
a matter of technique in his case. For example,
be desires to tune our spirits to a particular chord
that the vision of a twilight strikes in us. He can
do so in pure landscape better than in his large
hgure paintings, although there the “ poor folk ”
stay have been introduced for the very purpose of
strengthening the impression. It is, indeed, in
Pure landscape that Sterl has done his best work
down till now.
He generally adheres strictly to the skeleton of
nature ; in other words, as far as form is concerned,
he copies what he sees before him. He does not
compose or construe in order to counterpoise light
and shade. What he adds to nature lies in the
direction of lowering the general tone and of
eliminating detail. Like all true artists he simpli-
fies. The meadow that in reality is full of hetero-
geneous light and colour is to him nothing but
one more or less flat tone which he balances
against equally simple ones of the sky and of
the woods. The brushwork is bold and straight-
forward. This broad, sound style of landscape art
is not, oi course, distinctively Sterl’s own; but it is
a fine one to follow, and what he has created in it
is so far his most fascinating work.
I say “ so far,” because the produce of his
last year’s labour, from which all the examples
here reproduced are gleaned, show him to have
other aims in view besides. Sterl saw the light of
day (on the 23rd of June, 1867, by the way) at
Grossdobritz; so he is Saxon-born, and remains
true to his mother country inasmuch as he has
The
village cobbler
BY ROBERT STERL
239