Oaks on an island in the Staffelsee

Details

Literature:
Richard Messerer, Georg von Dillis. Leben und Werk, Munich 1961, in: Oberbayerisches Archiv, vol. 84, cat. no. 49, ill. p. 147.
Exhibition:
Johann Georg von Dillis. Landschaft und Menschenbild, Munich/Dresden 1991, p. 168, cat. no. 63, with col. illus. Provenance:
Owned by Bavarian nobility for generations.

Description

On a small elevation near the lakeshore, a group of oak trees huddle together, their intertwined and then diverging branches covered in lush foliage forming an imposing treetop. Dillis creates the foliage with quick, almost rigorous brushstrokes, drawing on a colour palette that ranges from deep brown to ochre and a yellowish green. The sky, with its pink background shimmering through in some places, reinforces the impression of a light-flooded, almost shimmering atmosphere, as can be experienced on an early summer morning on the Upper Bavarian lakes. The horizon line is only hinted at as a fine, fleeting pencil line separating the smooth water surface of the Staffelsee from the wide expanse of sky. The solitary figure, seemingly casually placed in the shadows of the trees with a few fluid brushstrokes, is not mere staffage. It functions both as a human scale and as a proxy figure in the picture, making it easier for the viewer to empathise with this idyll.

With a photo-certificate by Dr Eberhard Hanfstaengl, Munich, dated 8.11.1952.