"The breath of the trees gives us life." This quote by German poet Roswitha Bloch concludes one of the most popular videos on yoga blogger Mady Morrison's YouTube channel.1 Filmed in a springtime cherry orchard in Berlin, it is a calm yet powerful yoga session that provides a sense of grounding, clarity, and serenity for anyone who wants to escape from their everyday lives for a brief moment.
The paintings and drawings of Hjördis Baacke have a very similar effect. Her forest and park landscapes convey tranquility; powerful trees give us security; the shimmering light breaking through the leaves literally draws us out of our technologized, fast-paced world and into the silence of nature. In them, we find a kind of luxury break and, for a brief moment, live entirely in the moment, forgetting ourselves and our sensitivities. Nature is in our genes, but our modern lifestyle means that, while we talk about nature and enjoy looking at it, for centuries we have actually become increasingly distant from it rather than living with and within it. Hjördis Baacke's paintings remind us of what we could lose.
Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) and Lucas Cranach (1472-1553) were already discovering the local landscape, and the Central European forest found its way into their paintings and prints. For them, the forest was also a place of mythical creatures, the spring nymphs, or the so-called "Wild Men" from Norse mythology. A few centuries later, during the Romantic period, the forest was considered a place of contemplation and a place of longing and escape from political turmoil as well as social and economic upheaval. Here, too, the forest is a mystical place where the real world is combined with a dreamlike eeriness. It is the place where the correspondence between nature and God becomes tangible. Consider Caspar David Friedrich's (1774-1840) "The Cross in the Mountains," 1807/08, or "The Abbey in the Oak Forest," 1809/10. Here, the divine becomes the counterpart of nature.
The paintings of the Dresden painter Ludwig Richter (1803-1884), who also sees God in nature, also shape our image of the forest: For him, it is the mysterious fairytale forest with all its mythical figures and legends. By the end of the 19th century, forests and natural landscapes became symbols of inwardness. "Every landscape is, as it were, a state of mind, (...)"2, said the Swiss writer and philosopher Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821-1881), thus setting an example not only for the Swiss Symbolists.3
In Hjördis Baacke's work, who studied under Arno Rink and Neo Rauch at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig and lives and works in Leipzig, the forest now loses its enigmatic and symbolic quality. Here, the artist follows forest paths or walks through the green undergrowth; light shimmers through tall treetops, guiding the way further into the thicket, where there is always something new to discover. Human figures are rarely prominent in the works; they usually blend in rather imperceptibly with the landscape. Thus, the childlike figure, lost in thought, playing by the water in the here and now, virtually merges with the surrounding Dübner Heide (2024) – the jacket picks up the vibrant green of the plants, and the cap corresponds to the glittering water surface. Humans thus become what they are – a part of nature. As a rule, however, it is only traces left behind by humans that find their way into the paintings: pre-determined sandy paths, opening clearings and meadows, or even simply tire tracks dug into muddy paths. A certain blurriness pervades the images. Seen in this way, they are not depictions, but rather images of memories or even longing. They harbor a desire for the primal, for the natural. Yet humans are always present. Baacke does not depict the wild, untamed nature of a Cranach or the mystical forest of the Romantics, but rather man-made cultural landscapes that, in a certain way, provide orientation and thus also trigger a familiar feeling of well-being in the viewer. And even if a certain melancholy and loneliness often hangs over even the brightest and most luminous paintings, the bustling urban world, the technological world, is already waiting behind the trees. Sometimes one even recognizes a piece of familiar nature in the depicted forest. Hjördis Baacke captures the characteristic features of the landscapes she visits in her works. Although her works primarily lack titles, the Leipzig artists immediately recognize their own floodplain forest—in one or two paintings, one can practically smell the familiar wild garlic. Gentle streams, on the other hand, flow through the Spreewald, ferns characterize the Ribnitz Moor, and birch trees love the sandy, barren soils around Berlin. In the chestnut leaves of the Vienna Woods, one imagines discovering the floral ornamentation of Viennese Art Nouveau. A title would only distract from daydreaming, and the location, provided as an alternative title in parentheses, plays only a subordinate role—here, above all, is the focus on being in the here and now and conveying atmosphere. Baacke finds her inspiration on walks, excursions, and travels. Numerous photographs form the basis; the motifs dictate the composition of the picture. Later, they serve as memories on the one hand, but also as conceptual sketches for lighting conditions and moods on the other. In the studio, the actual motif fades into the background, and she begins to play and experiment with color. A forest like this isn't just made up of earth tones – it's worth taking a closer look! Every season and time of day presents itself differently. Sunbeams breaking through the foliage illuminate briefly shaded paths and then move on, a thick blanket of clouds darkens clearings, morning light is different from midday light. Nature presents us with many vibrant colors, which the artist captures with great skill. Beginning with bright, intense colors like red, more muted colors follow layer upon layer. Some remain, others are covered over. This leads to a colorful vibrancy that transports us to the desired mood: the fresh awakening of nature in spring, the shimmering heat of summer when the trees provide soothing shade, and the special play of colors of the withering deciduous trees in autumn. Each season has its very own color palette that is worth exploring. This creates a certain drama in the forest and landscape works, drawing us into the images and allowing us to linger for a while. Hjördis Baacke's images transport us from the gray of the cities into the fresh green of the trees and the changing play of the sun, thus giving us a little luxurious break from the world outside!
1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UzvYPZReRg (accessed February 24, 2025). 2 "Every landscape is, as it were, a state of the soul, (...)," Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Lancy, October 31, 1852. In: Amiel, Henri-Frédéric: Amiel's Journal, translated into English by Humphrey Ward, The Project Gutenberg eBook 2016 (accessed February 20, 2025). 3 See Anker, Valentina (ed.): Myth and Mystery: Symbolism and Swiss Artists. Kunstmuseum Bern et al., Paris 2013, p. 24.
