Artist
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff 1884 – 1976

About the work
Schmidt-Rottluff tried out almost all the creative possibilities that the woodcut had to offer in a multitude of ways. The only way to push the intensity of the block-like areas, harsh blackand- white contrasts, heightened plasticity and tectonically built constructions even further was to use colour. However, the colour woodcut tended to play only a subsidiary role in the artist’s oeuvre. The earliest example of a colour woodcut of Schmidt-Rottluff‘s known to date is the rare print Modell (Model), dating from 1911. In this impressive portrayal of a mountain settlement, the artist drew on his impressions from a 1925 trip to Dalmatia, with its protracted, narrow strip of coast on the landward side, for the most part bordered by steep mountain massifs. Against the white paper the thick black lines, orange roofs and gabled fronts of the houses in the foreground convey a lively impression of the buildings in a Dalmatian settlement. Behind them the ochre and black complex of a mighty castle towers over a mountain massif. The high tower on the left edge of the picture and the black expanse of the sky balance the composition. In another print Schmidt-Rottluff also experimented with the colour contrast between orange and blue. In the latter case, the monumentality of the castle is considerably lessened by the complementary contrast; in this print the sky is also rendered in black.

Catalog raisonné
Rathenau 21