Skizzenbuch c. 1840

drawing, ink, indian-ink

drawing

aged paper

toned paper

homemade paper

16_19th-century

sketch book

white palette

paper texture

personal sketchbook

ink

german

indian-ink

folded paper

watercolour bleed

watercolor

"Skizzenbuch" (Sketchbook) is a work by the German artist Karl Peter Burnitz. It was created around 1840. The image is a close-up of the sketchbook's cover which is made of a simple brown paper, with a dark brown spine and some faint pencil markings. This object is currently housed at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, Germany. This artwork exemplifies the importance of sketchbooks in an artist's development, as they allowed artists like Burnitz to capture fleeting observations and ideas. The modest design of the cover highlights the focus on the contents within, which likely consist of sketches and studies that reveal Burnitz's artistic process.

Comments

stadelmuseum about 1 year ago

⋮

The format and binding of this undated sketchbook, as well as the strokes and depicted motifs, are close to those of SG 2365 from the Städel Museum, which was presumably in use around the same time. In both cases, Peter Burnitz used a pencil to draw primarily architectural views – including medieval castles – and studies of trees. He often used a brush to colour his carefully laid out, mostly elaborate depictions in subtle shades of brown, blue and grey.The drawings were mainly made from nature: almost all of the captured castles are located in the Odenwald and on the Neckar, and were probably recorded by Burnitz in his sketchbook during a hike. The views also reveal some minor imperfections in perspective. On the one hand, they are similar to the architectural drawings in the artist’s earlier dated books (see Inv. SG 2357 to SG 2361, Städel Museum), but, on the other hand, they differ from the architectural depictions in the sketchbook SG 2365, which were possibly based on models and were very well composed in their perspective. Similar to this, the sketchbook at hand probably dates from the early period of Burnitz’s work, roughly the late 1830s and early 1840s.For a full sketchbook description, please see “Research”.