1803-1805

Morning

Philipp Otto Runge

German, 1777 - 1810

The series of delicate arabesque designs known as the Times of Day was the masterpiece of Runge’s short career. The artist conceived the project in 1802 as a set of four large paintings for display in a garden pavilion, but he had barely managed to finish the painted panel for Morning by the time of his death in 1810. Morning is part of the only completed version of the cycle -- a set of four large etchings meticulously executed by a team of professional printmakers in Dresden working from Runge’s full-scale preparatory drawings.

The four enigmatic images depict various cycles of life, from morning to night, spring to winter, and birth to death. Each is a combination of religious allegory and nature images, which viewers have found to be both astonishing and baffling.