.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The present lot shows a corner in the garden of Neukastel, with flowering plants and a sunlit garden wall, painted in 1917. Originally owned by the artist's parents-in-law, the Finklers, whose daughter Slevogt had married in 1898, the property passed to the artist in 1914. In 1917 Slevogt was forced to stay in Neukastel during World War I. This was distressing for him, since he had been appointed supervisor of a master-class painting studio at the Berlin Academy in that same year. He did make good use of this long stay at Neukastel and was very productive, resulting in a series of vibrant pictures showing the estate and its gardens.
Bernhard Geil wrote about Slevogt's garden pictures from around 1917: ''The choice of motifs in these garden paintings sometimes seems random, a characteristic very typical of French Impressionism. A modest motif has become worthy of being painted purely due to a specific light situation, enabling a detail of the garden to unfurl all its splendor of colors. The piece of garden has been transformed into a joyously experienced minor miracle of light, which has offered itself unexpectedly to the artist while the war has cast its shadow on the outside world. The glowing beauty of an intimate garden has become for Slevogt a moment of peaceful remoteness that he has been overjoyed to see, a light impression whose beauty the artist literally wanted to capture for himself. (B. Geil a.o., German Impressionist Landscape Painting, Stuttgart 2010, p. 218)
The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Bernhard Geil based on photographs.
Bernhard Geil wrote about Slevogt's garden pictures from around 1917: ''The choice of motifs in these garden paintings sometimes seems random, a characteristic very typical of French Impressionism. A modest motif has become worthy of being painted purely due to a specific light situation, enabling a detail of the garden to unfurl all its splendor of colors. The piece of garden has been transformed into a joyously experienced minor miracle of light, which has offered itself unexpectedly to the artist while the war has cast its shadow on the outside world. The glowing beauty of an intimate garden has become for Slevogt a moment of peaceful remoteness that he has been overjoyed to see, a light impression whose beauty the artist literally wanted to capture for himself. (B. Geil a.o., German Impressionist Landscape Painting, Stuttgart 2010, p. 218)
The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Bernhard Geil based on photographs.