People by a Blue Lake
August Macke, 1913
Less a portrait of individuals than an exploration of color, this 1913 painting by August Macke shows three figures beside a lake: on the right, a man and a woman, probably a couple, with the woman speaking to her daughter. A tree rises behind the man, and another partly appears at the right edge. It is thought to have been painted in Hilterfingen. Macke pushed further the influence of Impressionism and Fauvism on his own work, seeking the fullest expression of what color meant to him in painting. The main hues are those of the spectrum produced when white light is broken down: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. They pass into one another without hard edges, forming a kind of twelve-sector color circle. According to his wife, Elisabeth Macke, he was then preoccupied with conveying movement without perspective, through a play of shades, even within a single hue such as green. The viewer grasps the composition gradually, following the interplay of colors.
- Painter
- August Macke
- Date
- 1913
- Medium
- oil paint, canvas
- Dimensions
- 60 × 48 cm
- Museum
- Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe
- Genre
- genre art
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