DOI Heft:
No. 51 (June 1897)
DOI Artikel:Mourey, Gabriel: Fritz Thaulow: the man and the artist
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18389#0024
Fritz Thaulow
A silence as of death rises from these snowy land-
scapes towards the heavens where all light seems
for ever banished, for should a stray beam pierce
the denseness of the clouds, and flicker feebly to
the earth, it is so weak, so sickly pale, and lingers
so sadly on the livid snow, that one feels as though
the sun were dead—dead for ever, with no chance
of resurrection ; and one has no hope more that the
tri es will blossom once again, no hope more of light
or springtide or life itself!
But I am straying into rhapsody! Instead of
the technical phrases needed to describe this great
artist's manner, I can find nothing but fanciful and
poetical figures to employ, for they spring un-
summoned from my pen. Powerful, indeed, this
art must be, fully charged with Nature and Truth,
to arouse feelings like these. Was I wrong in quot-
ing from Delacroix, as I did just now? "In
presence of Nature herself, 'tis imagination makes
the picture."
And the truth of this seems clearer than ever to
me when I think of Thaulow's night scenes. In a
greater degree here, perhaps, than anywhere else he
appears as a matchless poet. It is not possible to
go further than he has gone in intensity of truth
and poetic feeling, and there is probably no painter
alive to-day who has realised these moonlight
nights, with their fluid limpidity and their soft
splendour, better than he. There is no resisting their
charm. The painter disappears, and in his place
we simply see the artist's soul, which has penetrated
so deeply into the mystery of things that it can
re-create them, so to speak, in all their ineffable
beauty.
The artist has little concern for this or that
technical process. His subject absorbs him too
much for that, and the emotions he feels—for feel
them he must if he would have us share them—
are too great to permit him to think of matters of
secondary consideration. For, after all, they are
but of minor importance, these technical details
to which nowadays many artists attach so much
weight. The question of processes seems in-
significant enough before the splendour of the
blazing sun, the sparkling waters, the spreading
foliage, with Life itself quivering and palpitating
before our eyes ! Enough to do to grasp the
scene, by whatever means be at hand, and with-
FROM A PAINTING BY FRITZ THAULOW
1 I
A silence as of death rises from these snowy land-
scapes towards the heavens where all light seems
for ever banished, for should a stray beam pierce
the denseness of the clouds, and flicker feebly to
the earth, it is so weak, so sickly pale, and lingers
so sadly on the livid snow, that one feels as though
the sun were dead—dead for ever, with no chance
of resurrection ; and one has no hope more that the
tri es will blossom once again, no hope more of light
or springtide or life itself!
But I am straying into rhapsody! Instead of
the technical phrases needed to describe this great
artist's manner, I can find nothing but fanciful and
poetical figures to employ, for they spring un-
summoned from my pen. Powerful, indeed, this
art must be, fully charged with Nature and Truth,
to arouse feelings like these. Was I wrong in quot-
ing from Delacroix, as I did just now? "In
presence of Nature herself, 'tis imagination makes
the picture."
And the truth of this seems clearer than ever to
me when I think of Thaulow's night scenes. In a
greater degree here, perhaps, than anywhere else he
appears as a matchless poet. It is not possible to
go further than he has gone in intensity of truth
and poetic feeling, and there is probably no painter
alive to-day who has realised these moonlight
nights, with their fluid limpidity and their soft
splendour, better than he. There is no resisting their
charm. The painter disappears, and in his place
we simply see the artist's soul, which has penetrated
so deeply into the mystery of things that it can
re-create them, so to speak, in all their ineffable
beauty.
The artist has little concern for this or that
technical process. His subject absorbs him too
much for that, and the emotions he feels—for feel
them he must if he would have us share them—
are too great to permit him to think of matters of
secondary consideration. For, after all, they are
but of minor importance, these technical details
to which nowadays many artists attach so much
weight. The question of processes seems in-
significant enough before the splendour of the
blazing sun, the sparkling waters, the spreading
foliage, with Life itself quivering and palpitating
before our eyes ! Enough to do to grasp the
scene, by whatever means be at hand, and with-
FROM A PAINTING BY FRITZ THAULOW
1 I