John Ittmann, Ed. the Enchanted World of German Romantic Prints 1770–1850. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art / New Haven, Ct: Yale Up, 2017. 424 Pp., 350 Illustrations.

Summary

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.