Rotsachtig landschap met Demophon en Phyllis bij een sluis 1811

Carl Wilhelm Kolbe made this print of Demophon and Phyllis by a lock, sometime around the turn of the 19th century. The image illustrates a story from classical antiquity about love, loss, and transformation. Kolbe was working in a period when the print market was tied to a very specific kind of consumer. As the engraving suggests, the buyer would have been someone who prized the image for its visual delicacy and its connection to the stories of classical antiquity. But there is also something new happening here. The delicate forms of the trees, the rugged rocks, and rushing water introduce an appreciation of untamed nature as an aesthetic experience. We might also consider Kolbe’s place within institutions of art. He was not only an artist, but a professor of languages and drawing at the Joachimsthal Gymnasium in Berlin. By consulting sources that would have been available to Kolbe, such as illustrated books of mythology and accounts of the natural world, we can understand the nuances of its visual language and appreciate its place in the history of art.