Uwe M. Schneede

Philipp Otto Runge (1777–1810) is, alongside Caspar David Friedrich, the great painter of German Romanticism. After beginning a commercial apprenticeship at his brother Daniel’s trading firm in Hamburg, he quickly discovered his love for art and his desire to become an artist. After his first drawing lessons, his studies took him first to the renowned Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen in 1799 and, two years later, to Dresden, where his friendship with Ludwig Tieck was a particular source of inspiration. His engagement with Goethe led to a clarification of his own artistic vision, which demanded original motifs and themes and was incompatible with a thematic return to antiquity. Working as a loner in Hamburg, he created a unique yet unfinished body of work, comprising both his realistic portraits and the cycle “Die Zeiten” (The Ages), conceived as a Gesamtkunstwerk: he died in 1810 at the age of only 33. Thanks in no small part to a fresh reading of his many insightful letters, Uwe M. Schneede has succeeded in demonstrating that, in times of profound upheaval, the painter was working toward a new beginning in art and must therefore be regarded as a pioneer of modernism.

Ellert & Richter Verlag | Hardcover | 1st edition | 272 pages | Dimensions (L/W/H): 21.7/15.7/2.7 cm | Language: German