Memories of Germany

Most of my friends will be aware that our family lived in Germany for a couple of years in the early 90's. Since then, we have gone back to visit friends a number of times, and on several occasions have visited the Ruhrgebiet, an intense industrial area around Dortmund, Essen, Duisburg,and Oberhausen, where our friends the Bollings live with daughter Annette (who was an exchange student with us in the 90's).  My memories are of heaps of industry and non-stop urbanisation, and of course the Rhein and its associated waterways.  So, of course I had to try to put these memories onto canvas, and this painting is what happened.  In the painting you will see the spire of a huge cathedral, inspired by my memories of the cathedral at Koln (Cologne).  The trees are of course European.  In the bottom right, you will see a garden of bright red roses or perhaps geraniums, which were extremely common in the summer months.  One wonders what was going on in the bottom right, but my memories are of a huge statue and folly built on the top of a bluff overlooking the river and city, and this is what is hinted at here.

The colours are quite bright, simply because I wanted them to be.  I love the orange of the forest path in the bottom left. I remember that often, when we just wanted to get away from all the people, we would drive into the forest and take a walk.  When we first went to Germany in the early 90's, the skies were generally grey blue because of the smog.  However, with the breaking down of east Germany, and the improvement of industry in general, the skies have become increasingly bluer each time we visit.  As such, I felt happy to paint the skies as a bright blue, although there is a hint of the old smoggy skies towards the left of the picture.  As I worked on the painting, I have to admit that global warming came to mind, and the painting reflects these thoughts in the huge amount of concrete, the power station and the huge steam towers, the gas/oil tanks and the oil flares, the shipping of goods, and the huge energy consumption of the city at night.  Despite this, leisure goes on in the form of sailing, and nature is trying to offset all this through the retaining of woods and forests.  It all seems quite a lot to say in one painting!!

Memories of the Ruhrgebiet Germany