Emil Schumacher

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Overview

GE-8/1997, 1997

Gouache on laid paper
36 × 44,5 cm
Signed and dated
Provenance:
Estate of Emil Schumacher
Literature:
Emil Schumacher: „… wie könnte ich mich der Natur entziehen?“ Gouachen, Malerei auf Schiefer, 1989-1998, Ausst.-Kat. Hans-Thoma-Gesellschaft, Kunstverein Reutlingen; Städtische Sammlungen Schweinfurt, Kunstverein Schweinfurt; Museen der Stadt Landshut, Schweinfurt 1999, Abb. S. 90.
Fascinated by the extraordinary light of the high mountain landscape of the Engadine, a high valley in the Swiss canton of Graubünden, Emil Schumacher set up a studio in Samedan, where he worked intermittently until 1999. It was here that he exclusively produced gouaches, which became part of the artist's oeuvre as sheets from the Engadin. This grandiose group of works inspired by the imposing landscape of the high valley includes the gouache "GE-8/1997", whose composition shows the arched form typical of Schumacher's work, executed in black. Lines, shapes and colours do not have a depictive function in Schumacher's work, but are autonomous pictorial means with their own expressive power. Nevertheless, the artist is inspired by nature and allows associations to be made with it: "Nature is extremely important as an inspiration for my work. Everything in it can more or less stimulate me to create." (Emil Schumacher) In "GE-8/1997", associations arise with a mountain ridge, the blue of a clear, wintry evening sky, the white of the clouds, but also of the snow, without it being a winter landscape. Schumacher's pictorial creations are ambivalent, free compositions and those of his experience of nature: "They are not landscapes. But how could I escape nature?" (Emil Schumacher) Schumacher has a very emotional relationship with the colour blue. He can "immerse himself emotionally" in this "wonderful" colour, with which he associates "sky, above, vastness, going into the distance, immersing himself in the blue, in the infinite" (Emil Schumacher). (Anette Brunner)