Wilhelm Trübner's Flat Brushwork

Wilhelm Trübner (1851-1917) created smoothly-painted scenes early in his career, but by his 30s had drifted to styles with increased emphasis on what are called "formal qualities" of a painting (the parts not related to depiction of a subject). This concept eventually evolved into pure abstraction, whereby all a painting had were such qualities (characteristics) and no subject matter. In Trübner's case, he mostly made paintings where brushwork was strongly evident, many brushstrokes done using wide, flat brushes.

I posted about this kind of brushwork here, and included one of Trübner's paintings.

His Wikipedia entry is here, and from it you might want to go to the German entry, which has more detail.

Below are images of some of Trübner's paintings in this style, most of which are from around the year 1900.

Gallery

Cronberg in Taunus - 1896
The kind of brushwork I've been mentioning can be seen at the lower left.

Schloß Lichtenberg im Odenwald - 1900
A later landscape painting with even more obvious brushwork.

Erna von Holzhausen on Horseback - 1901
This portrait is dominated by strong brushwork -- especially on the horse.

Self-Portrait with Hat - 1902
Heavy, flat brushstrokes are used selectively here: note the smooth background and largely smoothly painted coat and vest.

Dame mit Schwarzem Halsband - Lady with Black Collar - 1909
A later painting where Trübner was still using that style.

Stehender Rückenakt - Back View of Standing Nude - 1898
This was made before Fauvism and its arbitrary use of color. The use of blue on the figure helps relate it to the background. (I've noted in some other posts that it's not easy to fit nudes into outdoor settings with plenty of foliage ... skin tones and foliage are rough complementary colors. Here Trübner chose to use a nonrealistic color, blue, on both the nude and the folliage.)

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