Lot number 2559 - Auction 155
MONDNACHT IM HAFEN

GEORG BURMESTER 1864 Barmen - 1936 Kiel MOONLIGHT NIGHT IN THE HARBOR Oil on canvas. 80.5 x 90.5 cm (f. 98 x 107 cm). Signed lower right. Verso: signed, titled and numbered "1217" on the stretcher. Frame (presumably original). Georg Burmester was a passionate representative of plein-air painting, yet in a small number of works he moved toward a more expressive pictorial language. The present painting is a rare example of this development. Light remains here-as in Impressionism-the true protagonist; however, it is no longer a light that can be grasped through a photographic or purely naturalistic approach. Instead, we encounter the effect of a midnight northern sun, creating a fantastic, almost unreal spatial atmosphere. Several sources of light shape a tense and multilayered mood. Particularly eerie is the light streaming downward from the center of the composition: flowing, directed brushstrokes render this effect almost tactile. A second source of light appears in the lights of boats beneath dark sails, breaking through the dense darkness of night. A third emerges in the reflections on the water's surface, rendered through flickering strokes and radiating lines that intensify the sense of movement and instability. Nature is thus conceived in a clearly romantic rather than realistic manner, marked by feelings of unease, solitude, and a sense of fate, yet at the same time imbued with a deeply moving, almost magical beauty.