Philipp Otto Runge

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The Hülsenbeck Children 

 1805

                                  


Philipp Otto Runge arrived in Hamburg in 1795 to devote himself to trade and mixed with the literary scene, also taking drawing lessons.In 1798, he became a pupil of Nicolai Abraham Abildgaard at Copenhagen Academy.From 1801 to 1803 he studied in Dresden , where he met Caspar David Friedrich.He developed a colour theory, which he discussed with Goethe, whom he had met in Weimar in 1803, and who regarded him as the most importmant artist of the time.In 1804, he settled in Hamburg, where he dedicated himself to landscapes, which he deemed to be the greatest of the figurative genres, and which he interpreted applying a mystical idea of nature.Runge also produced portraiture , but this was expressed in turgid, compact shapes.In 1810, he published his treatise on colors, Farbenkugel, a work that had great influence on art in Germany and elsewhere, in nineteenth and tweentieth centuries.