Hugo Ungewitter

HUGO UNGEWITTER (Germany, 1869- 1947).
"Orientalist scene", 1924.
Oil on canvas.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 85 x 130 cm; 150 x 102 cm (frame).
The painting echoes the orientalist taste that permeated all artistic genres in the mid-nineteenth century. The artist picks up this inheritance in the heroic exaltation of the equestrian character that exhibits his weapon. The author focuses on the representation of a turbaned Arab, whose bronze flesh tones shine under the cerulean light of the sky. The artist shows us a scene in movement, where we observe that the protagonist rides, accompanied by another rider in the distance and a herd of which he seems to be responsible. Orientalism was born in the 19th century as a consequence of the romantic spirit of escape in time and space. The first orientalists sought to reflect the lost, the unattainable, in a dramatic journey destined from the beginning to failure. Like Flaubert in "Salambo", painters painted detailed portraits of the Orient and imagined pasts, recreated to the millimeter but ultimately unknown and idealized. During the second half of the 19th century, however, many of the painters who traveled to the Middle East in search of that invented reality discovered a different and new country, which stood out with its peculiarities above the clichés and prejudices of Europeans.
Hugo Ungewitter was a German painter recognized for his mastery in painting animals and battles. From 1887 he attended the Academy of Art in Düsseldorf. In 1897, the Düsseldorf Academy commissioned him to paint history paintings for the Grafenhof in Stotel. He was then commissioned by the Berlin court for Blücher's painting Crossing the Rhine at Kaub, which later became so famous. Although he did not exhibit his work for the first time until 1905. Ungewitter emerged primarily as a painter of military and hunting scenes, and became known for his realistic depictions of nature. In early April 1918, the Lübeck infantry regiment invited Professor Ungewitter to study at Comines-Warneton. In honor of the war artist, one of his societies was given the nickname Ungewitter. Stylistically, he remained true to realism even after World War I and eschewed modern trends in painting.