Jungblut, Johann (1860-1912), Park landscape with full moon, c. 1900
Johann Jungblut(1860 Saarburg - 1912 in Düsseldorf), Park landscape with full moon , around 1900. Oil on panel, 32 x 23 cm (panel), 45.5 x 37 cm (frame), signed “J. Jungblut.” at lower left.
- Upper right corner retouched, otherwise in excellent condition and attractively framed.
- The path into the light -
Johann Jungblut deviates from his canon of motifs here to illustrate a scene that relates his landscape depictions in backlighting even more to the source of light. We see a canal flowing into the picture toward the moon hidden behind clouds, its light reflected by the gently moving water. The channel becomes a band of light, making the moonlight present in the foreground of the image. The light is not only refracted by the water, but also by the beautifully spotted, shimmering leaves of the poplars and bushes and the white trunks of the birches on the right. The whole scene is bathed in the cool moonlight, which is particularly impressive as the vegetation is otherwise lost in the green-black. Only the outer foliage is highlighted, giving the landscape an air of mystery.
In keeping with the canal, the vegetation appears planted and yet free growing. It could be an overgrown castle park, which is also suggested by the water lilies that gather at the edges of the canal, giving the scene a fairy-tale quality.
If we look along the strip of light that connects us to the light source, however, the water does not reach the horizon. At the end of the canal, the vegetation rises again, clearly differentiated in color from the rest of the vegetation, and tonally adapted to the water and the sky. In this way, it connects the earthly and heavenly spheres. Precisely because of its uniquely diffuse appearance, it also takes on a different form: The tall trees to the left and right look like the soaring spires of a cathedral, between which the façade is situated with a slightly darker portal. In the moonlight, the world is transfigured, revealing a sacred building that transcends the world, to which the strip of light leads like an unrolled carpet.
But is it really the light of the moon? Can the moon shine with such intensity through the cloud cover? The landscape seems too dark for the sun. Jungblut deliberately leaves the identification of the source of light up in the air in order to decouple the scene from the natural course of events and give it a timeless transcendence.
About the artist
Johann Jungblut, today one of the most famous landscape painters of the Düsseldorf School, first worked for Villeroy & Boch in Mettlach, but this did not fulfill him artistically. In 1885, at the age of twenty-five, he moved to the art metropolis of Düsseldorf to devote himself to painting.
His work was particularly inspired by Dutch landscape painting, which he studied in detail on several trips to Holland. He also traveled to the Norwegian fjord landscape, discovered by the Düsseldorf School as an artistic motif, which at the time formed the Nordic counterpart to Italy as a place of longing.
Jungblut developed a characteristic style that combined Romanticism with the colorful atmospheres of Impressionism, making him a sought-after artist.
He sometimes signed his work with the pseudonym J. M. Sander. He was the father of the sculptor Emil Jungblut and the painters Hans and Walter Jungblut.