Le Matin

In 1813 there was very little for an architect to build in Prussia. The country was worn down by years under Napoleon, and Karl Friedrich Schinkel, who would later fill Berlin with museums and theatres, spent these lean years painting instead. This is one of a pair. He made a Morning and an Evening for the Prussian general Gneisenau, who wanted the two together to read as the promise of a new day after a long dark night, at the very moment Prussia was turning to fight Napoleon back. Two women in old Renaissance dress lead their children toward a grove of beeches as the sun climbs behind the trees. The companion Evening is gone now. It burned in 1945.