About the Artwork
The perspective of this painting leads the spectator’s eye from the elevated grassy dunes to the narrow beach where sand meets the shallow waters of the receding ocean. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s jagged application of paint in the foreground imparts a sketchy quality to the image, unified by the intense color palette of greens, browns, and dusty pinks set against the swaths of blue.
The shores of the North and Baltic Seas — bordering Germany — were popular destinations for members of Die Brücke (The Bridge), an artistic association Kirchner cofounded in Dresden in 1905. Sharing the desire for a spiritual regeneration through a communion with nature, Brücke artists frequented these secluded sites to sketch and paint. In the summer of 1912, Kirchner lived with his companion Erna Schilling on Fehmarn Island on the Baltic Sea, the remote area which provided inspiration and motif for this landscape.
Kirchner framed Costal Landscape on Fehmarn in a half-rounded wooden frame, which is preserved with the work.
Coastal Landscape on Fehmarn
ca. 1913
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
1880 - 1938
German
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Oil on canvas
Unframed: 35 1/2 × 47 1/2 inches (90.2 × 120.7 cm) Framed: 38 13/16 × 50 7/16 × 2 7/16 inches (98.6 × 128.1 × 6.2 cm)
Paintings
European Modern Art to 1970
City of Detroit Purchase
21.204
Public Domain
Markings
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Provenance
Professor Edwin Redslob (Berlin, Germany).1921-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
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Provenance pageExhibition History
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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Gordon, D. E. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Cambridge,1968, no. 331. [as Fehmarn Coastal Landscape, 1913]
Uhr, H. Masterpieces of German Expressionism at the Detroit Institute of Arts. New York, 1982, p. 100 (ill.).
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Credit Line for Reproduction
This work is in the public domain.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Coastal Landscape on Fehmarn, ca. 1913, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, City of Detroit Purchase, 21.204.
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