Bernard Schultze
Prints available from Grafos Verlag
| Bernard Schultze
is, first and foremost, a painter. The subtle color etching with its materially
sensual areas of aquatint suites the artist well. It meets his high standards
for painting. Over a dozen of his prints from his latest period have been
published by Grafos Verlag. These can be divided into four different creative
phases: |
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 Am Morgen  Sinkender Abend |
I) Graphics with fine lines that recall labyrinthine paths
and moss, guises of the goddess of nature. The fine mesh of light and
scribbly lines of landscape images can be seen in the following prints:
Am Morgen (In
the Morning), Sinkender Abend
(Sinking Evening), Rosafingrige
Morgenröte (Pink-Fingered Dawn), Licht des Sommers (Summer Light)
, Glühendes Abendrot
(Glowing Sunset). The latter is representative: a color etching
constructed from hundreds of tiny strokes and squiggles. The background
of this dendrite landscape is illuminated in a delicate salmon color.
The colors are transformed in the many related compositions, as if the
artist had observed the same piece of land from the same place under different
conditions and recorded its transformations. Metamorphosis is a persistent
theme in his work.
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 Gartenfest |
II) His prints from 1992-93, which strongly recall works from 1990, as if some of his sketches had been transferred onto the copper plate. Here the works are characterized by dispersed volume, color movement and spots of color, with a nearly Impressionist brilliance. Among these are Gartenfest (Garden Festival), Fest des Frühlings (Festival of Spring), Lichtkaskaden (Cascades of Light) , Im Licht des Pan (In the Light of Pan). A word on the representative color etching Lichtkaskaden, from 1992, with its typical light, streaming into the picture space as Schultze so likes. Pastel colors, as if the yellow coast were reaching into the cooler tones of the sea or sky. The color space is abstract, the color areas dance. .
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III) Squiggly lines, flakes of color and
intermingled pastel colors come together in the prints Arkadische
Landschaft (Arcadian Landscape) and Metamorphose
(Metamorphosis). The air reaches across the land, humidity impregnates
the moss and the sun strikes the cattle. Permeability is the theme.
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IV) In his latest works, his expressive color areas expand
in flowing colors. Large formats of over a meter. Among these are Wie
Feuerblumen (Like Flowers of Fire), Aquamarin (Aquamarine) and the trial
proof Submarin (Submarine). A subtle and yet intense magnificence of colors
which reaches to the margins of the paper and increases the depth of the
image. Masterpieces, not only from an artistic point of view, but also
in their printing technique, a daring and astonishing concept. The margins
of the plate go beyond the paper, which is atypical in an etching. A process
on the edge of the impossible. The results are impressive. With these
prints, paintings of over a meter in height can enter the home. The images
are suffused with cool and warm tones, an alternation of velvety areas
and carved lines, an encounter between intuitive lines and fixed form.
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