Herbert Seidel (1906 Berlin - 1974 Rüdersdorf), Landscape verso Forest interior, around 1950. India ink on grained, bleached paper, 40.5 x 58 cm, signed “Herbert Seidel” in pencil on the front and inscribed “Landschaft”.
- Pinholes in the corners, slight creases and minimally wavy
- Landscape as a space of imagination -
As a master of woodcut, Herbert Seidel was inspired by the aesthetic effect of this technique for his paintings. The broad black strokes look like the lines of a woodcut, although the line structures are much more expressive here, as in letterpress woodcuts the areas formed by the cut wood are printed. Nevertheless, the black lines in particular echo the effect of the woodcut, and the forms of the trees, houses, landscapes and mountains, which are only outlined, are based on the pictorial idea of the woodcut.
By making the artistic experience of the woodcut fruitful for painting, an extremely expressive landscape is created, which we complete with our eyes and thus open up imaginatively.
At the back is a forest aisle, crisscrossed by glowing red trunks, leading to a turquoise light at the end. The trees look like the nave of a Gothic cathedral and recall Johann Wolfgang Goethe's comparison of the interior of Strasbourg Cathedral to a forest. It is precisely this association with a naturally grown sacred building that Herbert Seidel seems to take up here in his formation of a new sacred art.
About the artist
Herbert Seidel was a German painter and printmaker best known for his woodcuts of Christian themes. Taking modernism as his starting point, he sought to revive sacred imagery. At the same time, he distinguished himself with innovative landscape painting.
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