July 23 is the birthday of German artist, draftsman, painter, and color theorist PHILIPP OTTO RUNGE (1777-1810).
Runge, alongside Caspar David Friedrich, is widely considered one of the central painters of the German Romantic movement. Art historians often draw parallels between Runge and William Blake, though Runge’s brief decade of work resists easy comparison with Blake’s long, multifaceted career. By contemporary accounts Runge possessed a strikingly agile mind and a deep command of the literature and philosophy circulating in his era. He wrote letters with unusual frequency and intensity, sustaining lively exchanges with figures such as Carl Ludwig Heinrich Berger, Friedrich, Goethe, Schelling, Henrik Steffens, and Ludwig Tieck, all of whom helped shape the intellectual world in which his art emerged.
