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Gothic Church Behind an Oak Grove with Tombs

A work made of lithograph in black ink with touches of opaque white watercolor on brown wove paper.
Public Domain

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  • A work made of lithograph in black ink with touches of opaque white watercolor on brown wove paper.

Date:

1810

Artist:

Karl Friedrich Schinkel
German, 1781-1841

About this artwork

Architect, painter, and printmaker Karl Friedrich Schinkel understood Gothic architecture as a fusion between universal Christianity and German genius. The combination here of vernacular Gothic architecture and a grand oak tree symbolizing Teutonic strength—as well as the medium of lithography itself, which had recently been invented in Munich by Alois Senefelder—infuses the print with a particularly nationalistic significance. This patriotism is all the more pointed given Germany’s military defeat at the hands of Napoleon’s army in 1806 and the subsequent occupation of Schinkel’s home of Berlin by French troops.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Prints and Drawings

Artist

Karl Friedrich Schinkel

Title

Gothic Church Behind an Oak Grove with Tombs

Place

Germany (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1810

Medium

Lithograph in black ink with touches of opaque white watercolor on brown wove paper

Inscriptions

Inscribed and signed recto lover edge, in stone: “Versuch die liebliche sehnsuchtsvolle Wehmuth auszudrucken welche das Herz beim Klange des Gottesdienstes aus der Kirche herschallend erfüllt, auf Stein gezeichnet von Schinkel.”

Dimensions

Image/plate: 48.2 × 34.2 cm (19 × 13 1/2 in.); Sheet: 52.3 × 38.2 cm (20 5/8 × 15 1/16 in.)

Credit Line

Harold Joachim Endowment

Reference Number

1997.422

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/147622/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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