The Old Bridge
Max PECHSTEIN
(German, 1881-1955)
The Old Bridge
Date1921
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensionsoverall: 31 x 39 in. (78.7 x 99.1 cm)
frame: 39 1/8 x 47 x 2 1/2 in. (99.4 x 119.4 x 6.4 cm)
ClassificationPAINTINGS
Credit LineSBMA, Gift of the Joseph B. and Ann S. Koepfli Trust
Object number2011.2
Subject(s)
- townscapes (built environment)
- buildings
- architecture
- river
Collection
- 20th century European
- European
Sub-Collection(s)
- Modernism
- German
- Expressionism
On View
On viewCollections
Label TextThe subject of this work may have been inspired by the scenery Pechstein painted with Heckel and Kirchner outdoors around the Moritzburg lakes near Dresden, but it is also likely a deliberate allusion to the group’s name Die Brücke, derived from Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra (first published in 1891). For these artists, Nietzsche’s philosophy represented a rejection of materialism and bourgeois values – a bridge to the future. The thin application of paint approximates the look of fresco or tempera. The allusion in the title to an “old” bridge may reflect the group’s evolution away from the thick impasto of van Gogh and toward this kind of paint application, in which the individual hand of the artist is less conspicuous.
