Watercolour: From Sketch to Art

Watercolours are one of my favourite art media. What I like is this mixture of freedom, lightness and chance. You can't control them down to the smallest detail. Watercolours react to water, paper and even humidity. Because they are beyond your control, it's easy to just let go.

The colours also lend themselves well to glazing. They are applied layer by layer, yet remain transparent. The light penetrates the layers and is reflected by the paper, thus becoming part of the artwork. It's an effect that I really love.

Title: A Path Through the Fields from the art series A Walk Through the Parks.

Watercolour: A Medium that Served

Even in the Middle Ages and early modern times, there were incredibly detailed watercolour works. And yet, for a long time, the medium was not considered ‘real art’.

Watercolour as a technique was not intended for what art was supposed to be at the time: colourful, monumental, durable and representative, if necessary worked out layer by layer over a long period of time.

The transparency of watercolour, its light delicacy, its lack of opacity and its water solubility automatically led to it being considered uncertain and fleeting. A medium that can be destroyed by moisture is not suitable for church interiors, palaces or public spaces, where these places become damp and clammy in winter. The works of art would have run during the first monastery winter.

Today, watercolour can be used on surfaces such as wood or canvas because there are special absorbent primers available. But this is a modern development. Historically, things were very different. In the past, watercolour worked practically only on paper or other absorbent, paper-like substrates (parchment, vellum). But for centuries, paper did not have a high status.

Even the most precious manuscripts were considered more as crafts or repositories of knowledge than as autonomous works of art. Paper was fragile, small in format, not monumental – all characteristics that spoke against its classification as ‘high art’.

The characteristics of the medium and the value of the material automatically relegated watercolour to the role of a working medium. Artists used it because it was quick, direct, inexpensive, and practical as a tool for studies, drafts, or travel sketches. It was the material of choice when you wanted to capture ideas before you really got started.

Even works that hang in museums today – botanical illustrations, topographical studies, nature observations – were classified at the time as crafts or documentation.

Today, we appreciate the precision, aesthetic quality and artistic signature of the artists. But in their day, even if they were technically outstanding, these works were not classified as autonomous art. They had a function – and anything functional automatically slipped out of the sphere of high art. This even applies to Dürer's nature studies: they were brilliant, but not works of art in the sense of the time, rather part of his working process.

Water and Paper in the East

In East Asia, water-based painting – ink and coloured ink on paper or silk – had been a highly regarded art form since the Middle Ages. The tradition of literati painting deliberately focused on transparency, reduction and controlled spontaneity. While Europe long treated watercolour as merely a working medium, in China and Japan it was regarded as an expression of cultural education and artistic mastery.

What was considered too fleeting and impermanent in Europe was an aesthetic ideal there. The quiet, the incomplete, the permeable interplay of water, pigment, and paper.
Much later, this tradition also influenced European modernism. Artists such as Kandinsky and Klee were explicitly interested in the way East Asian painters worked with line, surface, and emptiness.

England Discovers Watercolour Painting

In the 18th century, the tasks, expectations, and locations of art changed, and watercolour suddenly found its place in areas where art had previously been virtually non-existent.

England was the perfect breeding ground. Landscape played a much greater role there than in France, Italy, or Germany, not only in painting, but in culture as a whole. English garden design, the enthusiasm for the ‘picturesque’, the longing for nature as a counterpoint to the densely populated urban environment.

In addition, England had a pronounced desire to travel. Although the famous ‘Grand Tour’ was a pan-European phenomenon, the English, at least the wealthy, saw it as an integral part of their own cultural identity.

Landscape painting gained in prestige, and it was in this genre in particular that watercolour was able to play to its strengths: atmosphere, light, weather, fleeting impressions. Artists such as Sandby, Girtin and later Turner recognised the potential and developed a visual language that no longer looked like coloured sketches, but like independent works of art. With them, an artistic self-confidence emerged for the first time, which said that this medium is not only practical, it is also expressive.

England also had a strong middle-class art-buying class earlier than many other countries. A new culture of collecting and education emerged. People travelled more, took a greater interest in nature, science and landscape, and sought images that could capture these experiences. Watercolour was ideal for this: light, portable, quick, immediate and much cheaper than large-format oil paintings.

At the same time, there was a growing desire for private art that did not hang monumentally on a church wall, but found a place in one's own home. Small formats became socially acceptable – and with them a medium that works in small formats per se.

The Society of Painters in Water Colours

At the beginning of the 19th century, watercolour painting in England had long been more than just a medium for sketches. There was a lively scene, collectors were interested, and works were created that were clearly intended as autonomous art. However, the official institution refused to recognise them.

The Royal Academy still treated watercolour painting as a minor art form, gave it hardly any exhibition space, and fundamentally regarded it as inferior to oil painting. Out of a mixture of frustration and a desire for change, the Society of Painters in Water Colours was founded in London in 1804.

A group of artists – including William Frederick Wells and others closely associated with the emerging English landscape tradition – wanted to create an organisation that not only accepted the medium, but deliberately placed it at the centre. They wanted a forum for exhibitions that was not dependent on the Royal Academy, an audience that did not regard watercolours as a by-product, and a platform on which they could develop their own artistic language.

The founding was an act of self-assertion. Away from the strict Royal Academy, watercolour artists were able to pursue their own aesthetic paths, try out new techniques, cultivate atmospheric work and, above all, develop a visual language that did not have to measure up to oil.

The Society organised its own exhibitions, in which only watercolours were presented – and with the same standards that had previously only been applied to oil paintings. This changed public perception enormously. Suddenly, watercolours were no longer relegated to study sheets and drawings, but hung as autonomous works of art at the centre of an exhibition.

At the same time, the Society created a market. Collectors began to take a specific interest in watercolours, dealers included them in their programmes, and prices rose. Watercolour thus became an economically viable art form, which in turn encouraged young artists to pursue the medium seriously and not just regard it as a minor matter.

The Society of Painters in Water Colours was the driving force that brought watercolour out of obscurity in the early 19th century. It gave the medium status, publicity, and self-confidence.

Europe is Watching

The Society's exhibitions were so successful that they attracted attention on the continent. Artists from France, Germany and Italy were fascinated by the English freedom in dealing with landscape, the loose application of paint and the possibility of painting on the go.

French artists such as Delacroix used watercolour on their travels to North Africa or other colonial areas because it was the only medium that worked under such conditions.
In Germany, the spread of watercolour painting was closely linked to Romanticism and the Biedermeier period. Caspar David Friedrich did not use it excessively, but it became increasingly popular in his circle. Especially in the Dresden school and later in Munich circles, watercolour was increasingly used to capture observations of nature in a more subtle way.

Watercolour thus took on a role of its own in the travel narratives of the globalised 19th century. Naturalists, explorers, and artists who travelled to the Arctic, India, Africa or Latin America had practically only two options: drawing or watercolour. Oil would have been simply unusable on a ship or in tropical conditions at that time.

At the same time, English watercolourists increasingly influenced the art trade and art education. Their works were exhibited on the continent, acquired by international buyers, and watercolour emerged as a medium that was truly visible on the art market for the first time.

Expression of a Young Nation

In the United States, too, watercolour was initially a practical medium for surveyors, military artists and explorers who mapped or documented the vast country. American landscapes – vastness, weather, untouched nature – could be captured immediately with watercolour. Early on, the technique was therefore present in a context that lay between documentation and artistic observation. It was never considered quite as ‘inferior’ there as it was in Europe.

However, watercolour painting became really popular in the second half of the 19th century, when American art increasingly sought to break away from European academicism. The sketchy, immediate, documentary style suited a young nation that was searching for its own identity. It was faster, more direct, less standardised and allowed for a freer, more experimental approach.

Artists such as Winslow Homer used watercolour not as a sketching medium, but as a fully-fledged medium, often even preferring it. His works from Maine, the Caribbean and Florida show how well watercolour lends itself to fleeting light moods, moving water and weather – motifs that became extremely important in American art. Homer's success finally legitimised the medium in the United States.

Watercolour and Modernism

In the early 20th century, watercolour was initially liberated by modernism. For artists such as Paul Klee, Kandinsky and Macke, the medium became a place for experimentation, colour fields, rhythm, and symbolism. Watercolour was well suited to lightness, playfulness and spontaneity, which fitted in perfectly with the avant-garde. In the Bauhaus movement, it often served as a material for studies of colour, structure, and form. But this time without any hierarchy.

Many of these artists were subjected to a combination of exhibition bans, sales bans and the professional designation ‘non-Aryan’ during the Nazi regime, which effectively prevented them from earning a living as artists in Germany. Added to this was massive political and social pressure, which for many meant that flight or working in secret were the only options.

Emil Nolde is one of the few artists for whom a written personal work ban is on record. He sympathised with Nazi ideology, hoped for recognition by the regime, and was a member of several Nazi organisations. But his expressionist works were considered ‘non-German’, “chaotic” and ‘degenerate’ by the Nazis. In 1937, his works were removed from museums on a large scale. In 1941, he was personally banned from working.

Not only was he not allowed to exhibit or sell his work – he was officially not allowed to paint at all. Watercolour, in combination with gouache and ink, was his way out because it was easier to hide. Watercolours do not smell, dry quickly and do not produce any waste. Everything can disappear inconspicuously in seconds.

This is how his famous Unpainted Pictures came into being. A collection of around 1,300 works that are central to the myth of the persecuted artist, even though the ban on painting could not shake Nolde's political convictions.

After the Second World War, the role of watercolour shifted back to the personal and sketch-like. Many movements (Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Minimal Art) tended to favour canvas and large-format techniques.
But artists such as Andrew Wyeth nevertheless brought the medium enormous popularity in the USA.

One Tool for Many Uses

In the late 20th century, watercolour finally took on a role that was neither academic nor avant-garde. Instead, it became a medium that was widely used – by professional artists and amateurs alike.

Watercolour is still inexpensive, easy to transport, requires little material, and does not even need a studio. Even the smallest workspace is sufficient. This creates a kind of democratic openness: it is no longer a preliminary stage of painting, nor is it merely a tool for experimentation at the forefront of the art world, but rather a material that allows many people to work artistically in their own way, whether seriously or playfully.

Today, watercolour painting is more diverse than ever. There is no central direction, no style that sets the tone. Instead, there are several strands coexisting, influencing each other but not dominating. Watercolour has arrived in contemporary art. Many artists use it deliberately because of its transparency, its delicacy and its ability to make breaks, transitions, and fragility visible. For this reason, I like to use it for my nude series, for example.

At the same time, watercolour remains hugely popular in the field of illustration, from children's books and editorial art to graphic novels. Nature illustration has also been experiencing a revival in recent years, not least because watercolour can depict organic forms and fine structures very precisely and atmospherically at the same time.

Urban sketching, botanicals, sketchbooks as diary or travel formats, mixed media, nature journaling – many of these movements would be unthinkable without watercolour. Social media has reinforced this trend: watercolour is photogenic, easy to share and accessible, which in turn attracts new generations to experiment with it.