Lot 745 | Louis Douzette | Nightly Duck Hunt on the Ground

DOUZETTE, LOUIS
1834 Tribsees - 1924 Barth/Baltic Sea

Title: Nightly Duck Hunt on the Ground.
Technique: Oil on canvas.
Measurement: 53.5 x 79.5cm.
Notation: Signed and dated lower left: Louis Douzette, 1918.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed.
Provenance:
Private ownership, Germany.

Louis Douzette, German painter and professor of the Berlin Academy of Arts, was especially impressed by the effect of moonlight in the beauty of nightly lanscapes. His so-called "Moonlight paintings" bear witness to the idea of 19th century romanticism: they seek refuge in nature and propose a counter concept to the Industrial Revolution. Simultaneously they show first signs of the arising impressionism. After repeated study visits at the Baltic coast, Douzette decided to travel to France. Here he came to appreciate and adapt the French plein air painting of the school by Barbizon. Working in the open air was characteristic of the artists belonging to the same school in order to depict the natural light and shadow conditions of each landscape in their naturally given colouring.
The painting at hand demonstrates Douzette's artistic skill through the atmospheric interplay of silver moonlight and its reflection in the water as well as the surrounding vegetation. The loose and free painting fits harmoniously in the dreamy darkness of the night. "The Fisherman in the Moon Light" is illuminated by the soft light that is additionally reflected in the water. He is framed by the moving reed which hints at a nightly breeze. His atmospheric-romantic, almost contemplative, nightly landscapes rightly gave him the name "Moonlight Douzette".