Lot 1382 | Carl Bantzer | Study of a Hessian Farmer in a White Shirt

BANTZER, CARL
1857 Ziegenhain (Hessen) - 1941 Marburg a. d. Lahn

Title: Study of a Hessian Farmer in a White Shirt.
Preliminary study to Bantzer's painting "Abendruhe" from 1913.
Date: Before 1913.
Technique: Oil on canvas.
Mounting: Laid down on card.
Measurement: 47 x 68.5cm.
Notation: Signed upper left: C. Bantzer.
Frame: Framed.

Provenance:
Private ownership, Germany.

Carl Bantzer was one of the most influential artists of the Willinghaus artists' colony that was gathering and working in the Hessian village on the Schwalm from the 1880s one. Although he always felt connected to his Hessian origina, he nevetheless felt drawin to long visits in metropoles such as Berlin and Paris, from which he brought artistic inspiration and further artistic developments and implemented them in the motifs of the village in North Hesse.
In the 1910s before World War I when he was working as a professor at the Dresden art academy, he also worked very intensely at the motif of the village evening mood, which resulted in two large-size works: four farmers sitting at the field age in the evening sun. In 1913 he finalised the first verion of the "Evening Mood", a second, slightly altered and same-size version, is in Dresden nowadays.
Bantzer himself later writes about his fascination with this motif: "An heißen Sommerabenden ruhen die Menschen nach des Tages Last und Hitze gern bis in die späten Abenbdstunden im Freien vor den Häusern oder in der Nähe aus. Dier Unterhaltung verstummt allmählich, langsam wie mit sanften, langgezogenen Orgeltönen rückt die Nacht heran. Die zur Ruhe ausgestreckten oder hockenden Körper zeigen aber immer noch die Kraft, in der Frühe des nächsten Morgens mit der selben Frische weiterarbeiten zu können, wie am eben vergangenen Tag. Alles führt die Dämmerung zu Größe und Einfachheit zusammen." (cited after: B. Küster: Carl Bantzer, Marburg 1993, p. 180).
Numerous sketches in charcoal and oil were created in this context; the preliminary study of the centre farmer from the front is shown in our present painting.