Die Kuh im Sumpf (The Cow in the Swamp), Carl Wilhelm Kolbe the elder

Artwork Overview

Carl Wilhelm Kolbe the elder, Die Kuh im Sumpf (The Cow in the Swamp)
Carl Wilhelm Kolbe the elder, Die Kuh im Sumpf (The Cow in the Swamp)
Carl Wilhelm Kolbe the elder
Die Kuh im Sumpf (The Cow in the Swamp)
circa 1800–1803
Carl Wilhelm Kolbe the elder
1759–1835
Die Kuh im Sumpf (The Cow in the Swamp), circa 1800–1803
Where object was made: Dessau, Duchy of Anhalt-Dessau (present-day Germany)
Material/technique: etching
Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 296 x 411 mm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 11 5/8 x 16 3/16 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 431 x 612 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 16 15/16 x 24 1/8 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 20 x 25 in
Credit line: Museum purchase: Anonymous gift of a KU unclassified professional staff member
Accession number: 2010.0206
Not on display
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Images

Label texts

Big Botany: Conversations with the Plant World
Kolbe, a critical figure in the period of German art between Neoclassicism and Romanticism, made this etching about 12 years after his compatriot Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) wrote Versuch die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu erklären (The Metamorphosis of Plants). In this book, published in 1790, Goethe seeks to understand the enormous variety of plant forms and explain his theories about plant morphology. Kolbe’s most memorable works convey a sense of nature as an overwhelming force. Here he communicates this perception through a stifling eruption of enormous foliage. Perhaps Kolbe was attuned to the idea that Germany’s past, as distinct from Greco-Roman antiquity, was rooted in ancient German forests. If so, are Kolbe’s studies of giant vegetation an echo of German origins, or an expression of the forces of the natural plant world overwhelming humans, mythological figures, and animals alike?
Big Botany: Conversations with the Plant World
Kolbe, a critical figure in the period of German art between Neoclassicism and Romanticism, made this etching about 12 years after his compatriot Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) wrote Versuch die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu erklären (The Metamorphosis of Plants). In this book, published in 1790, Goethe seeks to understand the enormous variety of plant forms and explain his theories about plant morphology. Kolbe’s most memorable works convey a sense of nature as an overwhelming force. Here he communicates this perception through a stifling eruption of enormous foliage. Perhaps Kolbe was attuned to the idea that Germany’s past, as distinct from Greco-Roman antiquity, was rooted in ancient German forests. If so, are Kolbe’s studies of giant vegetation an echo of German origins, or an expression of the forces of the natural plant world overwhelming humans, mythological figures, and animals alike?

Exhibitions

Big Botany: Conversations with the Plant World
Stephen Goddard, curator
2018

Citations

Earle, Susan et al., The Register, VIII, No. 3, Part 2 (Lawrence, Kansas: Spencer Museum of Art, The University of Kansas, 2011): 208.

Goddard, Stephen H, ed. Big Botany Conversations with the Plant World. Lawrence, Kansas: Spencer Museum of Art, The University of Kansas, 2018.