More about Nightfall in St. Cloud

  • All
  • Info
  • Shop

Contributor

Despite being part of the Blue Rider group with Kandinsky, Gabriele Münter loved a good landscape and Nightfall in St. Cloud (Abend im Park) is just that.

Okay it’s not just a landscape. It's what a park would look like if you squinted your eyes really hard so that you were basically just looking through your eyelashes. One of the main reasons we can tell that Nightfall in St. Cloud depicts some sort of park or rural area is because the main color is green. Had the main color been literally anything else we would have been very confused due to the use of that electric banana color for the sky.

Kandinsky made similar landscapes to this one, which is surprising because no one ever pegs Kandinsky as a nature guy. Also art critics everywhere might shun us for saying this, but Münter kicks Kandinsky’s butt when it comes to landscapes so perhaps that’s why his aren’t as famous.

This painting was made while Münter and Kandinsky were off traveling Europe and making incredible art together before their relationship came to a burning, screeching halt. St. Cloud is a suburb outside of Paris that is known for how fancy it is. To give you a point of reference, Marie Antoinette and Napoleon at one point lived in the Château de Saint-Cloud before it was demolished during the Franco-Prussian War. And what on God’s green earth is more upper-class than Marie Antoinette? Nothing. The answer is nothing. Basically, Saint Cloud was a way to be close to Paris without actually living in a grimy city. Lots of nature, lot’s of high fences with really big houses behind them, lot’s of arrogant strolling. You know the vibe, even if you can’t really tell by looking at this slightly confusing painting.

 

Sources