Siegward Sprotte

About the work

Although Siegward Sprotte never tired in studying nature at close hand, many of his paintings, such as the "Song of the Sea" were created in the studio. Here, the blue-coloured segments appear to float across the sheet like musical notation. The title of the work too points to the symbiosis between seeing and hearing which in Sprotte's work assumes a pivotal role. For the artist, who articulated his artistic concept in numerous essays, the equal co-existence of image and text was a central concern. "Where seeing and hearing, as the leading senses, no longer compete with each other, there is nothing standing in the way of insight. The inter-communication of the human senses heralds the beginning of a new aeon." In the same vein, Sprotte was also fascinated by the aria "My Soul Hears by Sight" (HWV 207) by Georg Friedrich Handel, which was composed as one of the so-called "new German arias" between 1724 and 1727: "My soul hears by sight, / how, in order to exalt the Creator, everything cheers, everything laughs. / Hear now, the blooming Spring's splendour / is the language of nature, / that distinctly through the face / speaks to us everywhere."
For Sprotte this implies that our language should not be a description of the seen or unseen, and that our seeing should not be constrained by language. Both senses should be able to develop the full range of their faculties.
(Andrea Fink)