Otto Ackermann

Swiss, 1871 - 1963

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Feast of the Gods

Honoré Daumier, Anonymous Artist · c. 1849/1850, with later additions by other hands · oil on wood ·  Accession ID  1943.11.2

A white path and gray stone wall wind through ochre and harvest-yellow fields beneath a brilliant, turquoise sky in this stylized, horizontal landscape painting. The scene is created with long, visible brushstrokes of vivid color. Closest to us, the field is painted with vertical strokes of golden yellow and pea green. Touches of cardinal red and slashes of pine green create flowers around the end of the stone wall, which curves toward us from the background, at the center of this painting. The wall is painted with horizontal dashes of lilac and lavender purple, salmon pink, and periwinkle blue. A person wearing peach-colored trousers, a peacock-blue shirt, and a dark hat walks away from us, into the field, to our left of the wall. The white road enters the scene from the right, and meets the stone wall and a second wall on the far side of the road at a gate. Two columns rise from the walls to mark the spot of the gate, which opens into a property with three tall haystacks and a house. To our left, the house is painted with areas of warm yellow for the walls, honey brown for the roof, which is outlined in navy blue, and turquoise for the doors and windows. A few green trees, made of dots of bottle and forest green, are scattered near the house and haystacks. One sapphire-blue tree grows near the house. A band of azure blue along the horizon, which comes about two-thirds of the way up the painting, suggests a mountain range in the distance. Swirls of white suggest clouds in the turquoise sky. The paint is visibly textured throughout.
Vincent van Gogh, Farmhouse in Provence, 1888, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.34

Farmhouse in Provence

Vincent van Gogh · 1888 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1970.17.34

Bibliography

1995

  • Gautherie-Kampa, Annette. Les Allemands du Dôme. Bern, 1995:140-143.

2000

  • Luthy, Hans A. "Otto Ackermann, Schweizer 'amateur-marchand', und Géricaults 'fou au commandement militaire'," in Jenseits der Grenzen: Französische und deutche Kunst von Ancien Régime bis zur Gegenwart. 3 vols. Cologne, 2000:II:481-487.