Red Currant

Philipp Otto Runge

late 18th–early 19th century · Silhouette · Drawings and Prints

As a child, Runge learned how to cut silhouettes from his mother and sister, a practice he continued throughout his career and one that evolved from standard portrait profiles and small multifigured vignettes to detailed depictions of plant life. In nature, Runge found religious revelation. His process involved careful observation of the peculiarities of a species, which the cut-paper medium necessarily abstracted and idealized, such as in this example of a red currant with its berry-laden stems and feathery-edged leaves. His devotion to the cutout is apparent in his writing; at one point, he goes so far as to claim that his scissors had become an extension of his fingers.

Artist

Philipp Otto Runge

Date

late 18th–early 19th century

Medium

Silhouette

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Janet Lee Kadesky Ruttenberg Fund, in honor of Colta Ives, and Mary Martin Fund, 2010