MARÉES, Hans von

The Orangenbild was a wedding present to the painter’s friend, the distinguished art theorist Konrad Fiedler (1841-1895). Only thirty years after its completion in 1878 was it entitled The Four Ages of Man. On panel, using the old-fashioned tempera medium, the scene is set in the Garden of the Hesperides - a pagan Paradise - where nymphs guard trees bearing the golden apples, wedding gifts to Hera. Echoes of Poussin, with free quotations from Luca Signorelli are found in this splendid canvas, whose archaism may also have been stimulated by the popular art of Edward Burne-Jones.

Although officially considered a third member of the so-called German Romanists, Hans von Mar�es, long resident in Italy, moved far from the dramatic narrative of B�cklin or the ponderous perspective of Feuerbach. The Berlin-trained von Mar�es was Germany’s major prophet of Modernism, filling a critical role as that nation’s Puvis de Chavannes, the French master who was thirteen years his senior. Like Puvis de Chavannes, von Mar�es followed the Nazarene and Pre-Raphalite revival of wall painting. His major commission was the 1873 murals for the Library of the German Marine Zoological Station on Naples.

The Oarsmen is a powerful study for one of the largest Library fresco, located on the north wall.

Although officially considered a third member of the so-called German Romanists, Hans von Mar�es, long resident in Italy, moved far from the dramatic narrative of B�cklin or the ponderous perspective of Feuerbach. The Berlin-trained von Mar�es was Germany’s major prophet of Modernism, filling a critical role as that nation’s Puvis de Chavannes, the French master who was thirteen years his senior. Like Puvis de Chavannes, von Mar�es followed the Nazarene and Pre-Raphalite revival of wall painting. His major commission was the 1873 murals for the Library of the German Marine Zoological Station on Naples.

The Youth Picking Oranges is a life-size oil sketch preparatory to the fresco on the south wall of the library. Though this work is strikingly reminiscent of C�zanne, two years von Mar�es junior, the French painter was almost certainly ignorant of the German’s art.