Aquarell - Entstehung einer Bildgattung in Deutschland 1785-1825

Transparent, light-filled colours, different stains and blots as well as the visibility of the watery paint - all of this characterises watercolour painting. It was not until around 1800 that watercolour became a pictorial genre with an aesthetic value of its own, its characteristics becoming artistically autonomous means of painting. Previously, they had been reserved for studies and sketches. Gotlind Birkle is the first to examine the emergence of modern watercolour painting in the German states - on the basis of contemporary textual sources and extensive knowledge of the pictorial material. A striking example is a series of watercolours by the Munich painter and gallery inspector Johann Georg von Dillis (1759-1841). The author shows how contemporary aesthetics, art criticism, the art market, the demand for education and travelling drove the development of the new picture type and how the premises and concerns of modernism around 1800 shaped watercolour painting.

Wie das Aquarell zum autonomen Bildtyp wurde. Ein wichtiger Beitrag zu aktuellen materialästhetischen Debatten in der Kunstgeschichte