Senftenberg Ruin, 1886

The Senftenberg Castle Ruins in Lower Austria are a favored motif in the works of Eduard Zetsche (1844–1927), who was considered a painter of ruins and old city towers already in his lifetime. In this watercolor of 1886, he depicts the ruins on the crest of the rock mountain of the same name, which defines a sloping diagonal important for the composition. It has a rising counterpart in the lower half of the picture—the Krems River running through the narrow valley. The two picture diagonals converge on a point on the right edge of the picture, evoking an impression of a well thought-out composition. Zetsche uses varied shades of green to create the atmosphere of a summery, light-flooded landscape, following a naturalistic conception of art that he became acquainted with during his studies at the Düsseldorf Academy under Eugen Dücker (1841–1916).

AGW, 2001