The Seeing of Clouds · 2023

The Seeing of Clouds – Domgasse

Visus Signatus drawings, Domgasse Vienna, 22–29 October 2023

Graphite and pastel on paper, in part with gentle rain, formats up to 224 × 150 cm.

Gerhard Lang drawing on the roof terrace in the Domgasse, seen from the North Tower of St. Stephan’s Cathedral. Photo: Martin Putz

In late October 2023, Gerhard Lang spent a week working on a rooftop terrace in the Domgasse, a street in the First District in the centre of Vienna, very close to St. Stephen’s Cathedral. On large sheets of paper he drew the seeing of clouds. As the drawing developed, his eyes were fixed continually on the clouds. The approach he employed is generally known as blind drawing, but in Lang’s practice it is referred to as visus signatus, “drawn seeing”.

Gerhard Lang’s landscape work embraces both town and country. It might seem paradoxical that since the 17th century the artists in the history of Western landscape painting did not themselves work on the land. Landscape artists brought their experience of urban life with them: Claude Lorrain, John Constable or the painters of the Hudson River School. When Gerhard Lang was drawing the seeing of passing clouds over Vienna, he located the landscape issue in that realm of life that was central to the origin of landscape painting: the city.

(Excerpts from the essay “The Seeing of Clouds. Domgasse” by C. N., London, 2024)

The Seeing of Clouds, Visus Signatus drawing, graphite on paper, 24 October 2023,
220 x 150 cm
The Seeing of Clouds, Visus Signatus drawing, graphite on paper, 24 October 2023,
220 x 150 cm (detail)
Gerhard Lang drawing The Seeing of Clouds, in the background, St. Stephan’s Cathedral. Photo: Martin Putz
The Seeing of Clouds, Visus Signatus drawing, graphite and pastel on paper, 25 October 2023,
223 x 150 cm
The Seeing of Clouds, Visus Signatus drawing, graphite and pastel on paper, 25 October 2023,
223 x 150 cm (detail)
The Seeing of Clouds, Visus Signatus drawing, graphite and pastel on paper, 26 October 2023,
224 x 150 cm
The Seeing of Clouds, Visus Signatus drawing, graphite and pastel on paper, 26 October 2023,
224 x 150 cm (detail)
Looking southeastwards. Photo: Martin Putz
The Seeing of Clouds, Visus Signatus drawing, pastel and gentle rain on paper, the work is part IV of a series of four drawings with rain, which were created on 27 October 2023,
34,8 x 24,9 cm
The Seeing of Clouds, Visus Signatus drawing, graphite on paper, in the night from 28 to 29 October 2023,
223 x 153 cm
The Seeing of Clouds, Visus Signatus drawing, graphite on paper, in the night from 28 to 29 October 2023,
223 x 153 cm (detail)
The clouds were illuminated by the city lights, allowing Gerhard Lang to draw The Seeing of Clouds on the roof top in the night from 28 to 29 October 2023
The Seeing of Clouds, Visus Signatus drawing, graphite and pastel on wrapping paper,
29 October 2023, 220 x 140 cm (detail)
The Seeing of Clouds, Visus Signatus drawing, graphite and pastel on wrapping paper,
29 October 2023, 220 x 140 cm
Looking eastwards. Photo taken from the North Tower of St. Stephan’s Cathedral. Photo: Daniel Kalkhofer

Swipe for more images 1/15

Catalogues and texts to download

Credits

The Domgasse series was made possible by the generous support of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) via the PEEK project “radical matter” and by Dominika Li. The work was supported by many others too: Edith and Hans-Fritz Lang, Helmut Aebischer, Domo Baal, Gabriele Brötzner, Philipp Hartmann, Daniel Kalkhofer, Johann Lurf, Werner Meyerdrees, Ursula Panhans-Bühler, Martin Putz, Martin Reinhardt, Mag. Tamas Steigerwald, Tom Westerdale, Stephan Weyer-Menkhoff and the Volkstheater, which provided the brown wrapping paper, at this width not available anywhere else in Vienna at the time.

Photos: Martin Putz and Daniel Kalkhofer (working process, views from the North Tower), all others Gerhard Lang. Text: C. N., London 2024. Translation: Matthew Partridge. © C. N. and VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024.

← Works