At first glance, the landscape paintings by Stefan Thiel seem like romantic testimonies to German (cultural) landscapes. It is true that the choice of colors in black and white and their blending into countless shades of gray is irritating, as it is actually assigned to black and white photography. An oppressive feeling can arise during prolonged viewing. Why? Certainly because a 'leaden' heaviness, which cannot be further defined, lies over the picture-pretty motifs. An inkling could arise and it becomes certainty, if one knows about the background of these romantically appearing stretches of land. They are poisoned soils of German history. Ominous things have taken place there. And yet innocently unfolds our construct of beauty of nature.

And yet innocently unfolds our construct of beauty of nature.

However, the condition is that the viewer of the paintings also looks, visualizes the painting technique and is open to seeing and comprehending. That alone is a demanding requirement. However, one can also simply surrender to the beauty of painting as a construct of an image of a (man-made) landscape, certainly also with a romantic view.&#x20;

That the artist Stefan Thiel has also been engaged in painting for some years and has mastered it convincingly in terms of technique (and content) may be surprising at first, but there are analogies and references to his artistic biography that point to his photography studies with Dieter Appelt in Berlin. Photography as the basis of seeing and comprehending and at the same time leaving the technical materiality of photography appealed to the artist early on: his resulting "Paper Cuts" (see other works at Artsy), for example, have established the artist's fame. An important and large paper cut ("Stechlinsee 3-2013", 158 x 239 cm) had found 2013/2014 its way into the collection of the National Gallery.


German Landscapes

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