CARL BLECHEN

CARL BLECHEN (born 1798 Cottbus – died 1840 Berlin)
Carl Blechen is regarded as the innovator of landscape art in the 19th century. Authorities like Theodor Fontane,
Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Max Liebermann saw him as a genius. Today, experts name him in the same breath as Caspar David Friedrich and Paul Cèzanne. His works achieve record sums at auction. Works by Carl Blechen can be seen primarily in the permanent exhibitions of the Old National Gallery (UNESCO World Heritage Site) and at Branitz Castle near Cottbus.
Coming from a humble background, without an academic degree and against the will of the Prussian court, he became a professor at the Royal Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin. And yet he breaks with the constraints of his time, falls into the clutches of psychiatry and ends tragically.
Despite the historical figure, the action is in the here and now, because portrait busts, drawings, a puppet theater are created in front of the camera, and with the creation we immerse ourselves in the world of Carl Blechen. The Cottbus draftsman and the sculptor Steffen Mertens lead this artistic dialogue. He reflected on dramatic moments from Blechen's life, such as the quarrel with the star soprano Henriette Sontag or the consuming struggle over
Recognition.
The film follows Carl Blechen to original locations in Italy, such as Naples, Capri and Amalfi. There he entered his artistic zenith. Rosa von der Schulenburg, head of the art collection at the Berlin Academy of Arts, talks about this legendary art journey and the actor Michael von Bennigsen quoted Blechen in the original.

The works to be seen in the film were filmed in important museums in Hamburg, Vienna, Leipzig and Berlin and so the film also leads to the Carl Blechen Collection of the city of Cottbus in Branitz. Extremely rarely shown works from the holdings of the Academy of Arts and the Kupferstichkabinett Berlin are represented in the film. Exclusive to the movie
the Belvedere Vienna provided the legendary Blechen work "Afternoon on Capri" for recordings.

Film: 90 min, German, color, 3D, FSK 0
Production: DOSFILM Cottbus, 2020-23
Script, camera, editing, speaker and director: Donald Saischowa
Music: Nicolas Gasparini