Peter Robert Berry II
The Œuvre
The visual arts have played an important role in Peter Robert Berry's life since childhood. But it was not until a deep life crisis, caused by the break with his American fiancée, that Berry, now in his mid-thirties, found his way to painting. His acquaintance with Giovanni Giacometti and also Giovanni Segantini, whom he met in person shortly before his death in 1899, strengthened his desire to paint professionally and in oil.
Already in this year he began his first large-scale oil painting, "Christmas Eve" (1899 - 1901), while attending renowned art schools in Paris and Munich. His model remained Segantini and especially his divisionist style: colors are applied next to each other in fine strokes unmixed. Only in the eye of the beholder does a synthesis of colors, light and shadow later emerge. This technique is particularly convincing in view of the finest color patterns and shadings evoked by the snow-covered Engadine mountains. In Berry's work, it appears three-dimensional and moving.
Open Air Painting
Peter Robert Berry saw himself especially as a painter of the Julier and Bernina passes. His most powerful paintings are linked to these exquisite points of the Engadine landscape.
The presence of these artworks originates in the tireless search for the wide horizon, the clarity of the outlines and the intense light moods at over 2000 metres above sea level. Like Segantini, Berry painted his mountain pictures in the open air. A large wooden box held the canvas, a wooden hut provided makeshift protection against the wind; boots, gaiters, coat and hat had to suffice in the snow and cold.
Passion for horses
One of Peter Robert Berry II's special passions was horses. We encounter them again and again in his work: in drawings and sketches or in oil paintings. It is astonishing how their stature and physiognomy are depicted. The dynamics sometimes seem to go beyond the self-imposed framework of the drawing.
Horses appear in Berry's work both as proud draught horses of the Bernina or Julier mails or as richly adorned participants in a "Schlitteda", then again as athletes in horse racing and skijoring or also as hardened creatures, exposed to the mighty nature. His equine allegories of the springtime of youth, the battles of the titans, and the man-horse phenomenon are reminiscent of Arnold Böcklin's centaurs and Giorgio de Chirico's metaphysical surrealism, among others.
Seasons
Snow is the central element in Peter Robert Berry's paintings. One might assume that his paintings do justice to the Engadine idiom "nine months of winter and three months of coldness". Even when he paints the Engadine in spring, summer and autumn, porous remnants of snow or prematurely fallen airy flakes form charming contrasts with rich green and yellow.
In contrast, the palette of the strongest colours is shown in the painting "Summer Evening at Lake St. Moritz", 1922. Here the mountain peaks and the gentle grassy slopes below shine above the dark hills of the Staz forest, while below them the lake catches the light again in the reflection. An fascinating contrapuntal composition.
Pure abstraction
While Peter Robert Berry's style was initially classically divisionist in the style of Giovanni Seganini, he later also produced abstract sketches and even oil paintings.
In the painting "Einzug der Nationen, Winterolympiade St. Moritz" (Entry of the Nations, Winter Olympics St. Moritz) from 1928, the athletes and spectators, the superstructures and the flags dissolve into color impressions in the snow-covered Olympic stadium in Kulmpark. Thereby the picture gives a clear impression of the movements and the line-up of the people during a historical moment.
Gallery
