Gothic Church among Oaks

1810

Karl Friedrich Schinkel

(German, 1781–1841)

Culture

Germany, 19th century

Medium

lithograph with tint stone

Measurements

Sheet: 47.8 x 34.1 cm (18 13/16 x 13 7/16 in.)

Credit Line

Mr. and Mrs. Lewis B. Williams Collection 1940.1173

Catalogue raisonné

Winkler 763.8

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Location

Not on view

Description

Schinkel was the principle German architect of the first half of the 19th century. Responsible for almost every public building in Berlin, his neoclassical buildings for the city, based on the rational order and classic proportions of antiquity, came to define the power and stability of the Prussian capital. Schinkel also had a career as a painter and printmaker in which he developed his ideas of architectural splendor in landscapes that juxtaposed nature with buildings. The theme of the visionary Gothic cathedral pervades his work. Gothic Church among Oaks combines the principal Romantic tenets of Christianity, nature, patriotism, and medievalism into one image. Here, as in Quaglio’s Outer Staircase of a Gothic Ruin, a small child is contrasted with the enormity of the oak and the Gothic ruin. The continuity of life in the midst of death is signified by the sunflower among gravestones.