People by the Blue Lake
In this painting, abstract shapes and bright colors give the impression of two tall people standing outdoors. The people are in formal attire, depicted with vibrant colors and simplified forms: a man on the right has a square head with dark orange skin and no facial features. He appears to wear a black suit jacket over a white shirt with gray pants and a bowler hat. He stands next to another person on the left who appears to be a woman with dark red skin and no facial features wearing a blue coat over a white dress, with something on her head that may be a dark, wide-brimmed hat. The woman is reaching down to the left towards an area of the painting with white, pink, and orange shapes, which may depict a small child facing away from us, with white skin and clothes, light pink hair, and an orange hat. In the background, shapes resembling twisted brown and red tree trunks add organic lines, along with areas of green, orange, and yellow. Areas of blue suggest a sky behind the trees, and the ground under the people is mostly orange with areas of yellow, green, and blue.
Colors in this work
Details
- Artist
- August Macke
- Date
- 1913
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- overall: 60.32 × 48.26 cm (23 3/4 × 19 in.) framed: 78.74 × 66.68 × 5.08 cm (31 × 26 1/4 × 2 in.)
- Department
- CMC
- Holding institution
- National Gallery of Art
- Palette
-
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- Image provider
- national-gallery-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- Collection of Arnold and Joan Saltzman
Art Genome Taxonomy
10 tags
Subject Matter
-
Human Figure Both · 99%
The catalog describes two tall people outdoors, and the image visibly centers on two elongated human figures with a possible smaller figure near the lower left.
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Figures in Nature Both · 95%
The catalog identifies an outdoor setting, while the image places the figures among strongly visible tree trunks, foliage, ground, and blue environmental passages.
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Landscapes and Waterscapes Both · 80%
The title refers to a blue lake, and the catalog description notes blue areas suggesting sky; the image contains broad blue passages within the outdoor scene, although the waterline is indistinct.
Styles and Movements
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Expressionism Interpretive · 78%
The simplified anatomy, saturated nonnaturalistic color, flattened spatial treatment, and forceful brushwork support an expressionist reading; the supplied catalog does not assign a style.
Visual Qualities
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Bright and Vivid Colors Visual · 99%
The composition uses highly saturated orange, red, blue, green, yellow, and pale blue passages instead of naturalistic tonal modeling.
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Curvilinear Forms Visual · 93%
Twisting tree trunks, bent limbs, and rounded surrounding forms create a pronounced curvilinear structure across the composition.
Medium and Techniques
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Painting Metadata · 99%
The National Gallery of Art catalogs the work’s classification as painting.
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Oil Painting Metadata · 99%
The canonical medium is specified as oil on canvas.
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Large Brushstrokes/Loose Brushwork Visual · 92%
Broad, visibly worked strokes and overlapping patches of paint are evident in the figures, trees, ground, and surrounding color fields.
Time Periods
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1900 - 1917 Art Metadata · 99%
The work is dated 1913, placing it within the 1900–1917 period.
Source & rights
August Macke. People by the Blue Lake. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.
High-resolution sources
- IIIF image service ↗ 19,069 × 23,564 · National Gallery Of Art · Available