Description
M. SAVIGNY (1831-1905), Mediterranean coast near Nervi, 1881, Watercolor Marie von Savigny (1831 Boitzenburg - 1905 ): Mediterranean coast with palm trees near Nervi, 1881, Watercolor Technique: Watercolor on Paper Inscription: Verso inscribed: "Nervi 81". Date: 1881 Description: Freda Sophie Karoline Marie von Savigny, née Countess von Arnim (1831 Boitzenburg - 1905) is known to us as the wife of the Prussian envoy and co-founder of the Centre Party, Karl Friedrich von Savigny (1814-1875). As such, she accompanied her husband on diplomatic trips and had to take on numerous representative duties and attend social events herself. In her surviving letters from the family's private collection, we can read about the heavy burden placed on the young woman, who also raised their three children. Her interest in culture was expressed in her frequent visits to the theatre and the employment of a drawing teacher, an unknown Düsseldorf painter. The romantic view of natural landscapes with only cautious intervention by modern settlements reveals the influence of the Düsseldorf school of painting on Marie von Savigny in the mid-19th century. Her landscapes, which range from Heligoland to the Rhine Valley, the Ahr Valley, Baden and Switzerland to northern Italy, are characterised by picturesque vistas and the emphasis on striking natural formations and only rarely feature figures. The special effect of her watercolours is created by the luminous colours she creates through the preferred use of blue and green tones as well as skilful light and dark effects in the atmosphere. She is even able to lend her monochrome watercolours an inner luminosity. In her drawings, she achieves this by deliberately blurring dark areas and emphasising light areas in white. Despite the many prestigious duties that Marie von Savigny had to fulfil as the wife of diplomat Karl Friedrich von Savigny and the heavy burden of frequent travel and relocation, she had the unusual opportunity for her time as an artist to discover distant regions and capture them in pictures. Her artistic legacy reveals an unrivalled diversity of landscapes. Markus Raasch (ed.): Nobility, Catholicism, Myth. Neue Perspektiven auf die Adelsgeschichte der Moderne (Elitenwandel in der Moderne, 15), Munich 2014, p. 120ff. Not far from Genoa on the Ligurian coast is the beach at Nervi, shown here with a view along the long coastline. As the wife of a diplomat, Marie von Savigny was one of the few artists of her time to travel to this equally remote and picturesque location. Apparently impressed by the deep blue tones of the Mediterranean, in this painting she focussed primarily on the mood of the light in the sky and on the surface of the water. The date palms in the foreground root the view into the distance on the shore of the coast and give a small indication of the prevailing proportions. The view from the back, which shows the rough surf between two rocks, is completely different. Nevertheless, the different blue tones of the sea also play an important role in this nature sketch. Verso: Rocks on the Mediterranean coast Keywords: Italy, Genoa, Nervi, Coast, Mediterranean, Sea, Palm trees, 19th century, Modern, Landscape, Italy, Size: Paper: 15,3 cm x 22,8 cm (6 x 9 in)
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M. SAVIGNY (1831-1905), Mediterranean coast near Nervi, 188
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