Light trail through Germany – Impressionist painting

The Städtische Galerie Dresden invites you to take a stroll through summer gardens full of shimmering points of light, past glittering reflections in the water, magnificent avenues and beer gardens. Atmosphere, light and colour impressions define a large number of paintings that have been created throughout Germany since the 1880s. Artists in Berlin and Dresden, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart, Weimar and elsewhere painted light-flooded landscapes and gardens, expansive seascapes, nocturnal cityscapes and intimate interiors. In doing so, they sought an individual and emotional approach to the motifs, which they usually captured on canvas in the great outdoors. In this way, they not only defied the conservative Wilhelmine dictates of art, but also established a new art movement in Germany, without which our present-day visual world would be inconceivable: Impressionism. In addition to works by such famous painters as Max Liebermann, Lovis Corinth and Max Slevogt, the exhibition also features artists who were less well known, but were influential locally, including Thomas Herbst, Christian Landenberger, Fritz von Uhde and Albert Weisgerber. In the exhibition, their paintings are juxtaposed with works by their fellow Dresden painters, including works by Otto Altenkirch, Wilhelm Claudius, Ferdinand Dorsch, Gotthardt Kuehl and Robert Sterl, which come from the rich collection of Impressionist paintings at the Städtische Galerie Dresden.