Waldflechte (Forest Lichens)

Karl Kröner, artist

1887–1972

Waldflechte (Forest Lichens), 1906

Where object was made: Germany

Material/technique: gouache; paper

Dimensions:
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 43.2 x 27.9 cm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 17 x 11 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 25 x 20 in

Credit line: Museum purchase: Letha Churchill Walker Memorial Art Fund

Accession number: 1976.0005

Not on display

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Images

Label texts

Big Botany: Conversations with the Plant World

Kröner completed this gouache painting, a type of watercolor, while he was still a student at the Royal Academy of Arts in Dresden, Germany. Although there is no written documentation accompanying it, it is easy to propose that this work is the result of an assignment in which students were instructed to carefully depict an element from the natural world and then gather from it examples of repeating decorative designs for tiles, wallpaper, etc. In this case, Kröner has beautifully depicted a specimen of forest lichen in the upper left and filled the rest of the sheet with patterns derived from it.

Archive Label 2003:
The art nouveau movement in Germany was known as Jugendstil (Youth Style). The graceful curvilinear arabesques in the designs of Waldflechte could be a primer on art nouveau. They show how an organic form, like the forest lichens in the upper left, can inspire design. Belgian Victor Horta (1861-1947) spearheaded the art nouveau movement. Its focus on the beauty of organic forms was an effort to be modern without submitting to encroaching industrialism.

Archive Label:
In an effort to revitalize the arts, especially the decorative arts, art dealers, critics, and artists declared nature the source for artistic rejuvenation. Nature was the artist’s inspiration both in the rococo of the eighteenth century and in the art of Japan. Both were frequently invoked as models for the contemporary artist. Plants and flowers, both described literally and abstracted, were a basis for art nouveau design and embellished everything from table settings to architecture. The manner in which artists stylized nature into art nouveau patterns is evident in Karl Kröner’s Waldflechte, probably a student exercise in design. Nature’s abstract dynamism can be found in the decoration of a coffee service, a table cover, a decorative panel for a department store baluster, and even in Henry van de Velde’s advertisement for the nourishing food, Tropon-Eiweiss Nahrung.