The Family, Gabriele Münter

The artist is Gabriele Münter, born 1877 in Berlin, Germany, died 1962, in Mernau, Federal Republic of Germany. The title of the work is The Family, created circa 1910, in Germany. The work is made with reverse painting on glass.

The Family is a brightly colored reverse painting on glass that depicts three figures arranged in an inverted triangle composition. It is painted in large sections of solid color outlined in black, almost like stained glass. It is about four inches tall and three inches wide, and hangs on the wall in a group with eight other reverse paintings on glass that show religious imagery. This painting is shown in a wooden frame, also painted by the artist. The inside of the frame is painted brown, with a wide inset of blue and an outer rim that is alternately dotted with black and orange. The outer edge of the glass is painted black so that the figures appear as if they are looking out of an arched window. Behind them, the background is tan on the left two-thirds of the painting, and a bluish-green on the right third. Each of the people have similarly sketched features in expressionless faces. One figure’s head is set in the upper left-hand part of the arch, behind the other two figures. This person has reddish-brown hair and his face and neck are a solid olive-brown. He is slightly crowded out of the left side of the painting, so only a small part of his burgundy shirt shows. The next figure’s head is set just to the right of center, and is slightly shorter than the first figure. This person’s hair is brown and their face is a grayish-white with a hint of red at the lips. Her neck and body is one solid section of sky blue brushstrokes. The third figure’s head is centered underneath the other two figures with dark hair and a mustard colored face and body.

Reverse painting on glass is an art form in which paint is applied to one side of a pane of glass and then the image is turned over and viewed from the other side. Although the technique dates back centuries it was particularly popular among fold artists in 19th-century Central Europe. These artists were often peasants who produced affordable representations of venerated icons and familiar paintings or prints. Compare the reverse-glass Madonna and Child to the adjacent tempera painting to see artists from different contexts explore the same motif. German artist Gabriele Munter admired and collected reverse paintings on glass and produced her own examples, such as The Family, which were heavily influenced by the traditional practice.

This painting is displayed with a group of traditional reverse paintings on glass like those that inspired it. The traditional reverse painting on glass technique requires the artist to paint in an inverted process. The artist begins with painting the finer details on the glass first and then paints the background layers. When the glass is turned over, the viewer can see the layers through the glass in the proper order. Artist Gabriele Münter, one of the founding members of The Blue Rider art movement, wrote about when she first discovered this technique in a small German village: “We were all enchanted by these works…in Murnau I was the first, as far as I know, in the entire circle who took panes of glass and made some myself…I was fascinated by the technique and how easy it was and constantly told Kandinsky about it in order to inspire him to take it up as well.” This painting may show Münter herself alongside Wassily Kandinsky and Alexej von Jawlenky, two other painters in the Blue Rider Group. What kind of differences can you imagine between these reverse glass paintings and other nearby paintings painted on canvas?