Unter den Linden im Regen

Unter den Linden im Regen (Unter den Linden in the Rain) of 1920 takes Ury's signature subject — the rain-soaked Berlin street — to one of the city's most prestigious boulevards. Unter den Linden, lined with linden trees from which it takes its name, was the ceremonial axis of imperial Berlin, running from the Brandenburg Gate to the Palace. By 1920, in the aftermath of the First World War and the revolution that toppled the Kaiser, the street retained its physical grandeur while carrying the weight of a transformed political world. Ury's pastel captures the boulevard under wet conditions, transforming its pavement into a reflective surface for the lights and colors of a city that had survived catastrophe. The pastel medium allows rapid atmospheric notation suited to the dissolution of forms in rain. This late work continues themes he had developed since the 1880s with undiminished chromatic sensitivity.

In pastel, the rain-wet boulevard's reflections are built through layered, blended strokes of color. The powdery medium captures atmospheric dissolution naturally. The linden trees lining the boulevard provide structural verticals against the luminous, rain-softened street recession.