Märkische Landschaft. Um 1900.
Oil on canvas.
Signed lower left. 76 x 101 cm (29.9 x 39.7 in).

One of the artist's famous lake landscapes in sunset light.

PROVENANCE: Collection Ludwig Arioni, Wuppertal-Barmen (acquired before 1925, in family possession until 2010).
Private collection Hesse.

The lakes landscapes, characterized by an elegiac atmosphere, occupy a key position in the pictorial oeuvre of Walter Leistikow. Their suggestive value is an expression of a feeling common for the zeitgeist at the beginning of the twentieth century. This landscape emanates a certain sentimental heroism, which, owed to the decorative order of things and the light effect, apeals to several emotional channels of perception. Owed to its gloomy and mysterious rectilinearity, an almost military character is allocated to the forest. Leistikow captured the spirit of his days with this evening landscape. A bourgeoisie that had just lost the fundaments of its existence found relief in their ardor for nature.