Art Institute of Chicago

Gothic Cathedral Behind a Pond with Swans

Karl Friedrich Schinkel

Date

1810/15

Medium

Pen and brush and brown wash, with brush and brown wash and watercolor, over graphite, on cream wove paper

Culture

Germany

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Faced with a dearth of architectural commissions in French-occupied Berlin after 1806, the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel produced depictions of imagined architecture. Through these nostalgic concoctions Schinkel championed the Germanic Middle Ages by reviving a Gothic style of architecture over his more customary Neoclassical mode. Taking advantage of national sentiment, he found a market of buyers who longed for images of a simpler time. Schinkel’s own inscription from one of his contemporary lithographs could describe this work: an “attempt to express the lovely nostalgic sadness that fills the heart when the sound of the service emanates from the church.”

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