About the work
Siegward Sprotte had his very own way of looking at nature. The artist already became actively interested in Asian art at an early date, studied the literature and philosophy of the Far East and Chinese landscape art and calligraphy was not without influence in his own painting.
This wonderful sheet is without a doubt one of the Chinese-influenced landscapes. His pictorial means are reduced to an absolute minimum: four large, elongated, horizontal brush strokes and a few smaller blotches in the lower section of the painting are all that characterise this composition. Ebbe (Ebb Tide) is the title of the painting, and, despite the painterly abstraction, one feels as if transported to the German North Sea coast, with its rhythm of tides and the gigantic mud flats stretching almost to the horizon.
How did Sprotte’s teacher, the painter Karl Hagemeister, put it: “You need to write paintings, not paint them.”
Text authored and provided by Dr. Doris Hansmann, Art historian
Studies of art history, theater, film and television, English and Romance Languages at the University of Cologne, doctorated in 1994. Research assistant at the Art Museum Düsseldorf. Lecturer and project manager at Wienand Verlag, Cologne. Freelance work as an author, editor and book producer for publishers and museums in Germany and abroad. From 2011 chief editor at Wienand Verlag, from 2019 to 2021 senior editor at DCV, Dr. Cantz’sche Verlagsgesellschaft, Berlin. Numerous publications on the art of the 20th and 21st centuries.
