1800
ink
paper
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
Charakteristik Friedrichs II (Part III) is a 1800 ink by Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki, a Romanticism work, held at National Gallery of Art.
This set of four black-and-white prints shows busy, dramatic scenes with people on horseback and crowds gathered around them. The top two images look chaotic—one shows a wild battle with tangled horses, the other a stormy group of figures in motion. The bottom two are calmer but still full of action: one has a group riding through a landscape, the other shows a man on horseback talking to a crowd near tents. The tiny German text at the bottom of each print hints these scenes might be about a famous leader’s life. The artist used a mix of sharp lines and shading to create movement and emotion, which was a key part of their style. Try looking up etching to see how this technique works.
Daniel Niklaus Chodowiecki (16 October 1726 – 7 February 1801) was a German painter and printmaker of Huguenot and Polish ancestry, who is most famous as an etcher.
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