Home Online catalogues True to Nature. Open-air Painting 1780-1870 124. Alexandre Calame Vevey 1810 – 1864 Menton Storm at Handeck, 1838 Calame first visited the Bernese Alps in the summer of 1835, returning often until the 1860s. He was particularly taken with the untamed beauty of Handeck (Handegg) and the Grimsel Pass, and painted numerous views of its steep valleys, waterfalls and rugged mountaintops. Storm at Handeck is dated 1838 and was executed with great speed. Anthracite dominates the colour scheme, and there are touches of lighter grey and green, brown and white to capture rocks, pine trees, snow and ice. The following year, the artist exhibited a much larger painting with the same title at the Paris Salon which was received as a true masterpiece of Helvetian art. Though clearly executed in the studio, it must have been informed by open-air studies such as this one. A deeply religious man, Calame viewed his landscapes as an “homage... to the Author of all beauty and truth”.1 In this context, the dramatic light which shines behind the mountains and announces the calm after the storm can be seen to evoke the divine presence the artist felt in the landscape. 1https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/alexandre-calame-at-handeck, see Description, In-depth.
Calame first visited the Bernese Alps in the summer of 1835, returning often until the 1860s. He was particularly taken with the untamed beauty of Handeck (Handegg) and the Grimsel Pass, and painted numerous views of its steep valleys, waterfalls and rugged mountaintops. Storm at Handeck is dated 1838 and was executed with great speed. Anthracite dominates the colour scheme, and there are touches of lighter grey and green, brown and white to capture rocks, pine trees, snow and ice. The following year, the artist exhibited a much larger painting with the same title at the Paris Salon which was received as a true masterpiece of Helvetian art. Though clearly executed in the studio, it must have been informed by open-air studies such as this one. A deeply religious man, Calame viewed his landscapes as an “homage... to the Author of all beauty and truth”.1 In this context, the dramatic light which shines behind the mountains and announces the calm after the storm can be seen to evoke the divine presence the artist felt in the landscape. 1https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/alexandre-calame-at-handeck, see Description, In-depth.