Langko, Dietrich (1819 in Hamburg - 1896 in Munich): "Chiemsee-Ufer" original pencil drawing on handmade paper WZ "Hartmann in Luzern") ca.22x37.5cm; inscribed "Chiemsee" lower left handwritten inscription on verso; around 1865

Sheet margins minimally unfresh.

"Despite his great inclination towards art, Dietrich Langko initially had to do an apprenticeship with a room and decoration painter and earn his living as a journeyman. However, in his spare time he drew after etchings by Dutch masters, after Waterloo, Swaneveld and others, until, after five years of hard work, he was replaced by the brothers Jakob (1808, † 1845) and Martin Gensler (1811, † 1881), who, in addition to genre painting, also dealt with the landscape, received his first painting lessons. Both had already traveled to southern Germany and knew a lot to tell him about there and the city on the Isar. For the time being L. had to be content with the marshlands of Hanover, which provided the motifs for his first pictures and also later seriously occupied them. Only in the summer did he manage to get to the well-known Munich, where a good number of his compatriots, such as Karl Marr, Konrad Hoff, Lichtenheld, Bernhard Stange and others, were already in full activity and after the process of Albert zimmermann and his brothers , with Rottmann, Eduard Schleich competed in the most zealous work. L., cheered on by these comrades, quickly promoted himself so that as early as 1842 a landscape was purchased by the Kunstverein. The transition had not been easy for him, there were still hard struggles and deprivations of all kinds: but perseverance, diligence and enthusiasm, the inspiring example of so many like-minded people, the inexhaustible beauty of the country ahead: all this had a powerful effect on them despite the unbelievable poverty happy youth, which found the greatest satisfaction in ambitious artistic work. The Upper Bavarian plateau with its changing lighting and surprising light effects, the magnificent beech and oak forests on the grounds of the Würm and Lake Starnberg, even more the view from the beautifully situated Polling and Eberfing, where the youthful painters' colony had settled (whose history is still alive is unwritten, while the "Worpsweder" and "Dachauer" have already found detailed monographs) captivated him just as powerfully as the memories of the Elbe at home, which were repeatedly processed in his pictures. The whole noble sense of his character speaks from Langko's magnificently conceived, evenly composed creations, whether they be water surfaces in which the moon is reflected or wooded areas illuminated by the sun, even the wide foothills with the distant mountains: there always sounds the same, serious calm , sweet melancholy and grand conception of nature, as in Eichendorff's songs. Constantly alternating between south and north, L., like E. Schleich, loved to depict the effect of sunlight refracted by cloud layers in Allen possible variations. Similar motifs were to be found everywhere, both on the lovely Chiemsee and on the murky moors near Königsdorf. A true poet in his own way, L. discovered the transfiguring magic of colors and lines in the Isar meadows, in the “English Garden” and on Thalkirchner Landstrasse. For a change, L. also painted snowy landscapes, such as a “Winter Morning” (1852), a “Winter Forest” (1853) and the like. According to E. Schleich's example, the newer, coloristic direction exerted a significant influence on L., without changing anything in the character of his poetry and in the delicacy of mood, and his delivery became freer and broader. In order to protect himself from one-sidedness and mannerisms, but at the same time to benefit from Allen progressive experiences and to rejuvenate himself, L. liked to visit external exhibitions in Paris, Brussels and Antwerp, where his pictures had long since found an honorable guest right. In Munich he took part in Allen questions, controversies and concerns of the art association, willingly sacrificed his good time with thankless hanging commissions and broad meetings, and never withdrew from any true friend of art who brought new insight or wished for instruction. The characteristic peculiarity of his art consists, as A. Rosenberg remarks, "in his atmospheric illumination of broken sunlight, evening red or moonlight". His masterpieces include a "Moonlit Night on the Elbe" and "On the Maas near Dortrecht", a canal view of Schleissheim, "Sunset in the Moorland", an evening landscape from the old Bavarian Haespelmoor, including two pictures in the Neue Pinakothek: " Game near Munich” and a “Waldende”. – His clear character and the unenvious recognition of true merit won the noble, simple man as many sincere friends and admirers as his adequate art. The beautiful old age of the always active artist was clouded by a darkening of his eyesight, which he regained through a fortunate operation. Then, tactfully as always, he withdrew from the public with his own creations and ended after short illness. He donated the entire income of his life to the Munich artists' cooperative. Some of his studies, sketches, drawings and pictures were offered for sale at the Munich Art Association in January 1898, and everything was sold out on the first day and was secured." [General German Biography; published by the Historical Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences; Volume 51 (1906) pp. 589-590]

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