_-_Verwundeter_Ritter_im_Wald_-_0759_-_F%C3%BChrermuseum.jpg&width=1200)
Verwundeter Ritter im Wald
Adolph von Menzel·1875
Historical Context
Painted in 1875 and held in the art collection of the Federal Republic of Germany, 'Verwundeter Ritter im Wald' (Wounded Knight in the Forest) is an unusual departure for Menzel — a medieval or romantic subject quite different from his characteristic contemporary observation or Frederician historical reconstruction. A wounded knight in a forest is a type associated with chivalric romance and Romantic medievalism, popular in German painting through the Nazarene movement and into later nineteenth-century historicism. That Menzel engaged with this type in 1875 suggests either a commission requirement or a deliberate experiment with a mode quite different from his usual concerns. The Federal German art collection holds works by major German painters that entered state ownership through various historical routes.
Technical Analysis
Menzel renders the forest setting with his characteristic attention to the quality of light through trees, here applied to a more dramatic, atmospheric setting than his usual domestic outdoor observations.
Look Closer
- ◆The forest lighting — filtered, atmospheric, with deep shadows — creates a dramatic setting quite different from Menzel's typical subjects
- ◆The knight's medieval costume and armour are rendered with the historical precision he applied to all period subjects
- ◆Look for how the wound and collapse are conveyed — Menzel's typically unsentimental observation applied to a romantic-historical subject
- ◆The contrast between this romantic medievalism and Menzel's usual contemporary or historical subjects reveals the range of his practice
_Adolf_Friedrich_Erdmann_von_Menzel_(Hamburger_Kunsthalle).jpg&width=600)
.jpg&width=600)