Museum of 19th Century Art & Technology (LA8)
From 5 April to 31 August 2014, the Museum of 19th Century Art & Technology (LA8) in Baden-Baden, Germany, shows the exhibition “Lesser Ury und das Licht“ (Lesser Ury and the Light), which paves the way for rediscovering a magnificent painter. At the beginning of the 20th century, Lesser Ury (1861-1931) was among Germany’s most important painters.
The exhibition both presents Ury as a painter of light and the technological change around 1900, which is a prominent topic of his artistic work. At that time, metropolises such as Paris, London, Vienna, and Berlin not only grew in size, but also became brighter and brighter. Gas lamps and electric lighting changed the rhythm of Western civilization completely, which was also one reason for a shift in impressionist painting. Instead of illustrating objects and people, artists rather turned towards what makes objects, people, and colors visible in the first place: light.
Impressionen
Lesser Ury is at the heart of these developments. His pictures cover the whole range of artistic and technological innovation. He is a painter of unspoiled nature as well as the metropolis. For instance, he shows the viewer reflections of light, be it a ray of sunshine on a lake in the woods or the headlights of a car illuminating a wet road. In his works, we witness how light is transferred from forests and lakesides to the city, which symbolizes a revolutionary tension of the 19th century: does natural moonlight look colder or warmer than gas and electronic lighting in the city? The presentation of Ury’s works at LA8 Museum is the first one following some exhibitions in the 1950s and a Berlin show in 1995. It offers a new view of this remarkable German impressionist.
