Lot 270 D

Hans Purrmann, who had studied under Lovis Corinth in Berlin, set out for Paris in 1905. He had applied for scholarships in several places, but ultimately preferred the metropolis on the Seine over Italy - not least because of the avant-garde tendencies in French art publicised in Germany through galleries like Cassirer and publications like those of Julius Meier-Graefe. At that point in time Purrmann had already thoroughly distanced himself from any academic concept of painting. In Paris he became friends and worked together with the “Fauvist” Henri Matisse, who would become extremely influential on his work. Influences from these new developments have thus already become incorporated into the landscape here. A bold use of - not just local - colour characterises the depiction of the landscape and immerses the scene in a symphony of violet and green tones. Viewers' eyes can scarcely find their bearings in the plunging perspectives of downward, frontal and upward views representing the mountainous landscape and its water. Although it is presumably a German motif - Winzingen Castle in Neustadt an der Weinstraße has been proposed - it is interesting that the shop-bought canvas stretched on card which it is painted on was purchased from a small Parisian painting-supply shop in Montparnasse. Robert Purrmann initially dated the painting to the period around 1910/1911, but it is now listed in the catalogue raisonné under the year 1905.
Relatively few paintings have been preserved from Purrmann's Parisian period. “With the outbreak of the First World War, not only Purrmann's collection of French art [incl. works by Matisse and Renoir] but also his own paintings remaining in his Parisian studio were sequestered. Many of these still remain lost today, so that it is impossible to determine how many paintings were actually created in these decisive years.” (Ina Ewers-Schultz, “Eine Art Universität”: Purrmanns Pariser Jahre, in: Neue Wege zu Hans Purrmann, Berlin 2016, p. 87).