Mountain Path with a Tree
This sheet exhibits a remarkably free and expressive use of watercolor to capture a wooded landscape animated by wind and shifting light. Applied wet-on-wet, the colors bleed together, suggesting a murky tangle of damp foliage and brush from which rises a twisting tree, its branches spiraling upward. At lower left, blades of grass are reflected in the glassy surface of a brook. Trained in Hamburg, Nerly spent almost his entire career in Italy. This sheet probably dates from his early years in Germany or his time in Rome, before he settled in Venice in 1837.
Artwork Details
- Title: Mountain Path with a Tree
- Artist: Friedrich Nerly (German, Erfurt 1807–1878 Venice)
- Date: 1825–35
- Medium: Graphite, watercolor, and gouache on blue paper
- Dimensions: 18 7/16 x 13 1/8 in. (46.8 x 33.4 cm)
- Classification: Drawings
- Credit Line: Purchase, Jean A. Bonna Gift and Van Day Truex Fund, 2008
- Object Number: 2008.512
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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Friedrich Nerly (German, Erfurt 1807–1878 Venice)
1807–78
Friedrich Nerly (German, Erfurt 1807–1878 Venice)
ca. 1829–35
Joseph Mallord William Turner (British, London 1775–1851 London)
1843
Carl Georg Anton Graeb (German, Berlin 1816–1884 Berlin)
1860–84
Caspar David Friedrich (German, Greifswald 1774–1840 Dresden)
1805–6
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