Bei den Netzen (At the Nets)

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Bei den Netzen (At the Nets)

Artist Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (German, 1884-1976)

Date1914

Dimensions15 11/16 x 19 5/8 in.

MediumCarved pine block

ClassificationPrints

Credit LineMrs. George W. Stevens Fund

Object number

2010.49

Not on View

Label TextIn 1905, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff was the youngest of four architecture students to found the artists’ group Die Brücke (The Bridge) in Dresden. Rejecting the art establishment, they formed a small communal studio in an old butcher shop, where they hoped to become the new avant-garde of the visual arts. Schmidt-Rottluff named the group after a quote from the philosopher Nietzsche: “What is great in man is that he is a bridge, not an end.” Thematically, Schmidt-Rottluff avoided the urban scenes that interested other Brücke artists in favor of works inspired by remote northern German coastal towns and fishing villages. Schmidt-Rottluff excelled at and helped to revive in Germany the traditional art form of the woodcut, perfected 400 years earlier by Albrecht Dürer. Also drawn to African and Oceanic traditional art, he strove in his woodcuts, with their stark black and white contrasts, for simplification and abstraction. He used short, rough strokes to vigorously carve his design into the block, integrating any irregularities or accidents into his composition.Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art, European Expressionist and Cubist Works on Paper: 1900-1930, December 2, 2011-March 11, 2012 (University of Toledo Student Exhibition).