German Landscapes. Jan Schüler

Since 2015 Jan Schüler (Gießen, Germany, 1963) reflects in his paintings the social and political circumstances in which he grew up. In 2016 he painted a series of prisoners in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, “Schwarze Blumen”, based on photographs taken by field photographer Wilhelm Brasse.

In the “Deutsche Landschaft” series, published since 2017, Schüler finds his motives in cities such as Dresden and Frankfurt, both centers of German romanticism, in Weimar, where the first German republic was founded, in Düsseldorf or Berlin.

The characteristic of Schüler‘s paintings are smooth surfaces, delimited forms, and areas of color. In its landscapes, it avoids unnecessary details. Neither people nor buildings, fences, trees or clouds are presented in a naturalistic way, but are stylized in a coherent way.