Lot 52 D

Lyonel Feininger knew all of them by name – the schooners, sloops, paddle steamers, galleons, fishing cutters, and three-masted barques travelling along the East River or, later, on the Baltic Sea with full sails or smoking chimneys. He loved to stand on the shore and become absorbed in the spectacle of the passing ships, as though mesmerised. There is scarcely a motif that fascinated this German-American painter more than sailing ships and coastal landscapes. Inspired through repeated stays on the island of Usedom and in the coastal village of Dźwirzyno, Feininger created numerous painted and drawn seascapes and also continued to explore this subject after his return to the United States.
Feininger’s “Barke” of 1931 is a fabulous example of his marine painting. In this well-conceived composition he has placed a three-masted sailing ship in the centre of the picture, flanked by two smaller sailing boats to the left and right. The five sketchy figures in the foreground direct our gaze into the distance, towards the horizon, where the massive barque calmly glides along. The precise, surging and sinking pen-and-ink lines and subtle colour scheme consisting of blue, grey and brown represent the artist Feininger’s most important pictorial devices.