Siegward Sprotte

About the work

Despite Sprotte's highly reduced language of form, this painting is steeped uncompromisingly in reality. Nature was the exclusive theme of the artist, who settled in Kampen on the island of Sylt in 1945. Yet despite his deep affinity to nature, this work is not characterised by a naturalistic representation. For ultimately Sprotte is seeking to capture the quintessence of nature.
In this present "Wave with Sun" the artist distils his depiction of the ocean into the motion of just one wave. Striking is the quality of draughtsmanship in this work; for the great wave is rendered with just a few strokes of the brush, underlining untrammelled the freedom with which the artist approaches his subject. Rather than mere representation, he reduces his theme to just one fascinating characteristic, suggesting that Sprotte has discovered Lessing's "fruitful moment". Although we see little in this sparsely executed work from 1985, we can sense the synaesthetic experience of raging foam, radiant sunshine and tossing waves, together with the noise, the tactile perception and even the warmth of the sun. Thus, as we view his painting, the artist invites us to immerse ourselves into the endless universe of an ocean wave, and perhaps even to conjure, deep within our inner soul, our own "wave of the sun".
(Andrea Fink–Belgin)