Old Gables V

Lyonel Feininger was among the many modern artists who were targeted by the Nazis and whose art was labeled “degenerate.” He left Germany and—after having lived abroad for fifty years—returned to his native country, the United States. There, his work grew more abstract, inspired by the effects of light and natural forces, as seen in the drawing nearby. However, Feininger also turned to a subject that had fascinated him decades earlier: the buildings of Lüneburg, a town in northern Germany with distinctive Backsteingotik, or “Brick Gothic,” architecture. Old Gables V shows several of these typical medieval buildings in Lüneburg, with stepped gables and grid patterns on the facades. The canvas is organized horizontally by the stacked gables, and vertically by bands of bright and darker blue, emphasizing the abstract qualities of the painting. Feininger made dozens of prints and paintings inspired by this iconic German architecture, creating a visual memory of a culture and country that were by then lost to him.