The Valley of the Mills near Amalfi

(Zittau 1808 – Monaco di Baviera 1888)
Largely self-taught before completing his studies at the Dresden and Munich Academies under the guidance of Carl Rottmann, Albert Zimmermann was a prominent figure in German historical landscape painting and the patriarch of a renowned dynasty of artists, which also included his brothers Max, Robert, and Richard. In this Amalfi view of the Valley of the Mills, datable to the late 1880s, the artist renders the rugged topography of the area through the aesthetic framework of late European Realism. The precipitous cliffs, the wild vegetation clinging to the rockface, and the historic architecture of Amalfi's traditional paper mills are examined with rigour and exceptional precision. Light pierces the gorge to illuminate the valley floor, converting the physical landscape into an intense chromatic notation that reflects, by the turn of the century, the profound fascination the Amalfi Coast held for Northern European masters.