Sea of Mists: Philipp Otto Runge
Three years younger than Caspar David Friedrich, Philipp Otto Runge (1777–1810) was a promising painter who tragically died of tuberculosis after little more than a decade of his career. Like Friedrich, he was born in what was then Swedish Pomerania, in the coastal town of Wolgast. When he was sixteen he moved to Hamburg to work in his father’s mercantile and shipping business. He then decided that he wanted to be an artist, and in 1798 began his studies at the Copenhagen Academy in Denmark, shortly after Friedrich had completed his training there. In 1801 he moved to Dresden in Germany, where he undertook a further three years as a pupil of Anton Graff, and became involved in the Romantic Movement.
Philipp Otto Runge (1777–1810), We Three (1805), oil on canvas, dimensions not known, formerly Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany, destroyed by fire in 1931. Wikimedia Commons.
Runge painted this group portrait of We Three in 1805, the year after he had finished at the Academy, and shortly after his marriage. This shows his older brother Johann Daniel on the left, with the artist and his bride Pauline. This may have been painted after the couple had moved back to Hamburg later that year, although they soon returned to live with his parents in Wolgast.
Philipp Otto Runge (1777–1810), Rest on the Flight to Egypt (1805-06), oil on canvas, 98 x 132 cm, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany. Wikimedia Commons.
Runge’s Rest on the Flight to Egypt (1805-06) is an unusual depiction of this story. The Holy Family are resting at dusk around a small fire tended by a dreamy-looking Joseph. The infant Christ, who for once looks like a real baby, if rather older than newborn, is staring up at a strange tree covered with large white flowers and a couple of winged angelic children, one of whom is playing a harp.
Philipp Otto Runge (1777–1810), Birth of the Human Soul (c 1806), oil on panel, 35.5 x 32.7 cm, private collection. Wikimedia Commons.
He showed an early interest in mystical religion, as reflected in this vivid vision of the Birth of the Human Soul, painted in 1806. Runge made strong associations between primary colours and members of the Christian Trinity, with blue for God and the night, red for morning, evening and Jesus Christ, and yellow for the Holy Spirit.
Philipp Otto Runge (1777–1810), Peter on the Sea (c 1806-07), oil on canvas, 116 x 157 cm, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany. Wikimedia Commons.
He was commissioned to paint an altarpiece for the chapel in Vitt, on the island of Rügen, one of Friedrich’s Baltic haunts. Peter on the Sea from about 1806-07 is his unfinished work, showing the disciple Peter with Jesus walking on the water of the Sea of Galilee under the light of a full moon.
In 1807, Runge developed the concept of a colour sphere, which he worked on until its publication in 1810.
Philipp Otto Runge (1777–1810), The Morning (1808), oil on canvas, 106 x 81 cm, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany. Wikimedia Commons.
The Morning (1808) is a small version of what was intended to be the first in a cycle of four large murals showing Times of the Day, for installation in a Gothic chapel, but only two were developed this far. Runge gave a set of large engravings of his early versions to Goethe, who displayed them in his music room.
Philipp Otto Runge (1777–1810), Colour Sphere (1810), Farben-Kugel oder Construction des Verhältnisses aller Mischungen der Farben zueinander, und ihrer vollständigen Affinität, mit angehängtem Versuch einer Ableitung der Harmonie in den Zusammenstellungen der Farben. Hamburg: Friedrich Perthes. Wikimedia Commons.
In his colour theory, Runge advanced Lambert’s colour pyramid into a solid colour sphere, seen here in its published form from 1810. The upper views show the outer surface of this sphere from the white and black poles. The lower views show cross-sections through the sphere: on the left, cut through the equator, and on the right a vertical section through the poles.
Unfortunately this aesthetically pleasing model has its problems, as it includes some impossible colours, and denies that each colour can be uniquely identified by a single set of values for hue, lightness and chroma.
In 1809, Runge’s childhood tuberculosis worsened, and he died in Hamburg on 2 December 1810, at the age of only thirty-three.
