Pioneer of Expressionism (1853-1890)

"This man is either mad or he lets us all far behind ", already prophesied Camille Pissarro born in 1853- son of Vincent van Gogh a clergyman. And in fact, the Dutch became a pioneer of modern, with its curved lines and bright colours, which ushered in the Expressionism. While van Gogh got hardly any money for paint and canvas in his lifetime for his paintings,and with the support of his brother Theo, he achieve his works today regularly usually tens of millions on spectacular auctions.

Van Gogh (1853-1890) comes from a family of Protestant pastor in Groot-Zundert in Brabant. With art, he first came into contact through an uncle, the art dealer was. Initially, van Gogh worked in stores of Galerie Goupil in the Hague, London and Paris, but also as a tutor in England and as a Methodist preacher. He began as a preacher in the mining area of Boringe for the first time to draw. Just a few months he attended the Brussels Academy, formed further but as an autodidact.

His first oil paintings represent poor farmers and workers. These pictures are very dark and painted with simple, broad lines. Antwerp, where he remained for three months and met the lightness and elegance of Japanese woodblock prints, he moved to Paris. Here he discovered the Sun and bright colours. He studied the early Symbolists, Impressionist and pointillist artists, and painted urban images, landscapes and portraits. More light and freedom-seeking, he went to Arles in southern France, where he followed his friend Paul Gauguin in 1888. Van Gogh was planning to set up a community of artists and to invite all of his painter friends, to live with him and to work, but the plan failed. After a dramatic confrontation with Gauguin in van Gogh injured himself on the ear he had to move several times longer with overwrought nerves in the hospital. These crises should worsen later and later led to his suicide.

In the time in Arles, van Gogh's most famous paintings emerged. All of the Sun's luminosity is in them; Fields, trees and clouds speak of the force of nature in impressive language. It is hard to imagine to us today's viewers, what force may have been necessary, to repudiate such Burgundian masterpieces of personal mental distress. It is van Gogh's secret - and it remains until today the secret of his late work.

Günter Dietz developed a revolutionary method for the authentic reproduction of images, where not the usual printing inks are used, but the same original colors used by the artist. Depending on the artist's painting technique, up to 180 (!) various paint applications need to be applied in order to achieve a perfect replica of the original that also sensationally reflects the "relief" and pastosity of colour composition.

Here are the examples of  'Couple at the Garden Table' by August Macke:

Similarly, the material of the original carrier, such as reproduction on canvas, paper, wood, copper, parchment is always used.

The result is a perfect, gridless reproduction that comes very close to the original in expressiveness and effect. Even museum specialists often can not distinguish the replica from the original. Therefore, a special security notice must be inserted, which is visible only under X-rays.

The circulation of most of the Dietz replicas is limited, usualy to 950 copies. Each canvas replica is stretched onto a frame as the original, so you can retighten the canvas according to variations in room temperature and humidity. High-quality solid wood strips round off the image of every Dietz replica.

Numerous masterpiece paintings of Rembrandt, Caspar David Friedrich, Claude Monet, Gustav Klimt and various others have been recreated by the Dietz Offizin. Famous modern artists such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall used the method developed by Günter Dietz to have replicas of their works produced.

Press commentaries:

“The Dietz System provides images as good as the originals. What the electronics did with the invention of Hi-Fi and stereo for music playback - here the graphic technology made up for visual art.“ (Die Zeit)

“In theory there is no difference between the original and the Dietz replica. They should not be called reproductions, but facsimiles.“ (Newsweek)

“For art printers all over the world remains unrealizable to this day, what managed only Dietz with the help of printing technology: The perfect reproduction of painted works. “ (Der Spiegel)

Konrad Adenauer at the presentation of Dietz replica of the frieze "To the young St. Peter" (Bundeshaus Bonn)



Günter Dietz (on the left) and Marino Marini

The mold is usually taken directly from the original, so that the replica reproduces even the finest details. After casting the replica, using the most appropriate method, the surface is polished, patinated, gilded or painted according to the original.

A replica of ars mundi is a recognizable image of the original.

The style of Impressionism that emerged in French painting in 1870 owes its name to the Claude Monet's landscape 'Impression, Soleil Levant'. After initial refusal it began a true triumphant advance.

Such painters as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Auguste Renoir and others created motifs from everyday life, urban and landscape scenes in a bright, natural light.

Impressionism can be seen as a reaction to the academic painting. The emphasis was not on content with its strict rules of painting structure, but on the object as it appears at any given moment, in an often random cut out. The reality was seen in its whole color variety in natural lighting. The studio painting was replaced by the open-air painting.

The brightening of the palette and the dissolution of firm contours was accompanied by a new way of handling with color. Often, the colors were no longer mixed on the palette but side by side on the canvas so that the final impression lies in the eye of the beholder with a certain distance. In "Pointillism", (with such painters as Georges Seurat or Paul Signac) this principle was carried to the extreme.

Outside France, Impressionism was taken up by such painters as Max Slevogt, Max Liebermann and Lovis Corinth in Germany, and by James A. M. Whistler in the United States.

In sculpture, the impressionism expressed itself only conditionally. In the works of Auguste Rodin, who is considered one of the main representatives, you can see a resolution of the surfaces in which the play of light and shadow is included in the artistic expression. Degas and Renoir created sculptures as well.