Get out into nature! : Last chance

"Out into nature!" was the motto of landscape painting in the 19th and early 20th century and led to a revolutionary departure: painting en plein air - in the open air - with its direct observation of nature, produced a fresh, realistic pictorial language that paved the way for further developments. However, the works were not always created outdoors: many were also created in the studio, some based on sketches or studies, and the process of creation often remains in the dark. But it is precisely in the area of tension between spontaneous observation of nature and reflected studio work that the transformation of painting becomes clearly visible in our exhibition.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Romanticism elevated the landscape to a "landscape of the soul", an expression of longing and the sublime. Although created in the studio, these works influenced an entire generation - right up to Johann Wilhelm Schirmer and Friedrich Preller the Elder, who continued the ideal of the poetic landscape around the middle of the century.

In Barbizon, on the edge of the forest of Fontainebleau, Camille Corot, Charles-François Daubigny and Théodore Rousseau sought the immediate experience of nature from the 1830s onwards. With their oil sketches on location, they laid the foundations for a new, realistic pictorial language and became pioneers of Impressionism. This can also be seen in Camille Pissarro, who continued this tradition and soon developed into an important Impressionist.

At the end of the 19th century, an artists' colony emerged in Worpswede that saw nature as both a motif and a way of life. Works by Otto Modersohn, Fritz Overbeck, Hans am Ende and Paula Modersohn-Becker reflect melancholy, closeness to nature and the desire for renewal.

After 1900, Expressionism brought a radical change: With bright colours and powerful strokes, artists such as Emil Nolde expressed their feelings directly and spontaneously in their powerful compositions.

And Italy again and again: since Goethe, generations of painters have been drawn to the south to experience the special light, the vastness and the traces of antiquity. Works by Camille Corot, Jean-Achille Benouville and Friedrich Preller the Elder bear witness to this in the exhibition. In addition to the landscape depictions, still lifes and bronzes broaden the view.

Last edited on 28.01.2026