Flying kites

Flying Kites is an oil on card painting by Carl Spitzweg, dated 1880 but, according to the sources, executed between 1880 and 1885. It is now in the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, which acquired it in 1908 from the Fritz Gurlitt gallery. The scene is simple: in the lower foreground, three children stand on a green-brown meadow. One boy holds the string and gazes up at his kite, while another, carrying a kite under his arm, follows his gaze, and a girl with a doll stands with her back to us. A woman approaches with four more children along a winding earthy path. Further back, other people are barely hinted at and, on the horizon, a church and houses suggest a town. The meadow has been linked to the Theresienwiese in Munich, where Spitzweg lived. Two thirds of the picture is an unbroken pale blue sky, in which three kite shapes appear as tiny specks. Critics have praised the restrained palette and the way an everyday moment takes on an almost timeless quality, while the vertical path and kite string cut across the otherwise horizontal composition.

Painter

Carl Spitzweg

Date

1880

Medium

oil paint, cardboard

Dimensions

38 × 12 cm

Museum

Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin

Depicts

kite, child

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