The Enchanted World of German Romantic Prints 1770–1850 ed. by John Ittmann (review)

This oversize volume is substantial in more than one way. The book with 350 color illustrations of the highest quality showcases the museum's amazing collection of German Romantic prints by the collector John S. Phillips. This collection is the most encyclopedic in the US and contains rare works missing even in European collections. "Maler Müller," Caspar David Friedrich, Adrian Ludwig Richter, and Philipp Otto Runge are just a few of the illustrious artists covered. The book helps us "imagine the tremendous effect of these black-and-white masterpieces on the era's imagination," as Cordula Grewe puts it in this volume.

The impressive volume grew out of the exhibition with the same title at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2013, which displayed 125 etchings, lithographs, and woodcuts. The exhibition explored the works of artists from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and investigated how printmaking reflected the cultural changes that impacted the German-speaking regions of central Europe during this period. The book edited by John Ittmann (curator of prints at the Philadelphia Museum of Art) is much more than an exhibition and collection catalogue, assembling under its cover what could be separate monographs by Ittmann (who has four topic articles in it plus one on the collector Philips, an introduction, and several shorter articles on specific artists) and by Cordula Grewe who builds on her expertise displayed in the monographs Painting the Sacred in the Age of Romanticism (2009) and The Nazarenes (2015). Grewe is acknowledged on the title page as "editorial consultant" and contributes four articles. Further expert studies are provided in articles by Warren Breckman (author of European Romanticism: A Brief History, 2008), Mitchell B. Frank (German Romantic Painting Redefined, 2001), F. Carlo Schmid (coeditor of a 2008 exhibition catalogue, The Romantic Era: Prints, Drawings, and Paintings, 1765–1852), and German Romanticism and word and image expert Catriona MacLeod, who is of course well-known to members of the Goethe Society.

The prints show the many artistic enthusiasms of the period. The articles, all richly illustrated, structure and investigate major aspects such as the Romantic fascination with landscapes both wild and idealized, the intimacy of family and friendship scenes and of portraits, the influence and legacy of sagas and fairy tales, as well as the synthesis of image, word, and music. All the articles are meticulously researched and well written. They deserve to be listed here by title, at least, and the wide range of investigation and expertise they offer is certainly worthy of a more detailed discussion.

In "Central Europe between 1770 and 1850: The Rise and Fall of German Romantic Art and Culture," Warren Breckman explores the economic and social transformations of the time period, focusing on the contrast between Friedrich II of Prussia and Ludwig I of Bavaria. He states, "Contributing to and also reflecting this cultural ascent was the expansion of printmaking, a field in which Germans became renowned innovators. Prints distributed images more broadly than ever before, helping not only to advance the fine arts but also to provide a visual accompaniment to the great events of the period."

John Ittmann's article, "Albrecht Dürer and His Hallowed City of Nuremberg," examines the veneration of Dürer as part of a movement to rehabilitate German art and architecture as "creations of a long-forgotten golden age of artistic excellence north of the Alps" and of Germanness. Prints by Ludwig Emil Grimm and Johann Jakob Kirchner demonstrate how art lovers venerated Dürer's house and burial place in Nuremberg as sacred sites.

In the early 1800s, Dresden became a destination for German artists and art lovers who wanted to admire Raphael's Sistine Madonna, and the engraving by Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Müller was once as highly esteemed as the painting itself. Cordula Grewe ("Raphael's Sistine Madonna Domesticated: A Return to Purity and Piety in German Prints") maintains that the cult of...