A century on an influential artist is rediscovered

(22 Oct 2021) LEAD IN  

It has been almost a hundred years since the last big exhibition.  

But the National Gallery in Berlin thinks that the world is ready to rediscover the painter Johann Erdmann Hummel and his groundbreaking pre-modern works.  



STORY-LINE  

It is the only painting by Johann Erdmann Hummel that the wider public in Germany knows.  

Hummel's depiction of the Granite Bowl in the Lustgarten in Berlin from 1831 is a pre-modern masterpiece in architectural depiction.  

But Hummel also tried something that was groundbreaking at the time, painting the reflection of the people around the bowl on the underside of the structure.  

The painting greets visitors to a large retrospective exhibition showcasing the pioneering, but largely forgotten, artist at the Old National Gallery in Berlin.  

And it comes almost 100 years since Hummel was last rediscovered, with a large exhibition at the same museum.  

"The rediscovery of the artists Johann Erdmann Hummel comes at the right time because he is rediscovered every 100 years," says Ralph Gleis, head of the Old National Gallery.  

"He was largely forgotten after he died in 1852. But in 1924 there was the first exhibition of the works by Hummel here at the national gallery."

"And now it's been almost another 100 years, and, in that time, there hasn't been any retrospectives. So, we are getting to know the full oeuvre, all the facets, with almost 100 works, paintings, and drawings, like it was new."

Hummel was born in 1769 in the city Kassel.  

After training as a painter at the Kassel academy he moved to Berlin in 1800, the city where he stayed for the rest of his life.  

"He was well-known during his lifetime. Especially in Berlin as a teacher for over 40 years and that made him famous in the city. He also had a big influence on architecture painting, during his generation and the generation that followed," says Birgit Verwiebe, curator of exhibition.  

His paintings were made before the impressionist movement would sweep Paris and the Expressionists would paint their thick black lines in the depiction of Berlin's nighttime life.  

But in some ways, he was an impressionist before that term was even coined, says Verwiebe.  

"He was ahead of his time; I definitely think so. He was a pioneer in his time. And he followed many really modern concepts that later appeared again. He, for example, investigated the impressionist concept: how does an item change with the changing light."  

Hummel traveled around Europe to get inspiration for paintings.  

Many of them were shown in a large exhibition at the Art Academy in Berlin in 1932.  

But by the time he died at the age of 83 in 1852, he was known as a good teacher and a painter that, perhaps, experimented too much with fancy new concepts.  

Real fame, and then later obscurity again, would come later.  

"The special thing about the artist Hummel is that he was ahead of his contemporaries when it came to aspects and optical phenomenon and perspectives. And also, the way he investigated the construction of architecture. And he did that in such an exaggerated way that his contemporaries were almost upset with him.  But that makes him more interesting today," says Gleis.  

The exhibition "Magical reflections. Johann Erdmann Hummel" opens on October 22 and runs through 20 February, 2022.



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