Skizzenbuch 1873

0:00

drawing, mixed-media, paper

drawing

mixed-media

16_19th-century

paper

german

coloured pencil

This sketchbook was created by Ludwig Metz, and it now resides in the Städel Museum. The eye is immediately drawn to the rough texture of the cover. This coarse surface, rendered in a neutral tone, speaks volumes about the nature of artistic creation. The sketchbook, in its very form, becomes a signifier of potential. Its blank pages promise exploration and the development of ideas. The artist's choice of such a simple, unadorned material challenges the traditional notion of art as a finished, polished product. This humble object destabilizes established meanings of value and aesthetics. It suggests that the creative process, with all its imperfections and raw experimentation, is where the true essence of art resides. The sketchbook, therefore, acts as a cultural artifact, prompting us to reconsider the structures and systems that define our understanding of art itself.

Comments

stadelmuseum over 1 year ago

⋮

Ludwig Metz took this sketchbook, dated 1873, with him on his journey through northern Italy, from Brescia to Bergamo, to Lake Maggiore and on to Turin, Torre Pellice and Genoa. On the differently coloured sketchbook pages, he drew landscape, architectural and urban motifs with a pencil in relatively regular intervals, most of which he inscribed and sometimes added coloured notes to. He also noted down a planned itinerary from Genoa via Recco and Rapallo to Sestri Levante. The drawings are characterised by fast, strong strokes, with which he sometimes also set rich shades and which he occasionally accentuates with a brush in brown. With double-page drawings, he seems to have not been bothered by a change of paper colours, just as he did not include them in his other designs. A few full-page sheets contain addresses and notes. ‒ See also the sketchbook SG 2742 in the Städel Museum, which probably documents another part of the same trip.For a full sketchbook description, please see “Research”.