View of Tollenstein

Adrian Zingg was a master of the monochrome landscape executed in watered-down inks. The extraordinarily nuanced gradations of tone he could achieve are clear in the play of light and shadow. This drawing, probably a preliminary study for a larger work, depicts the ruins of Castle Tollenstein in Bohemia (today in the Czech Republic). Yet it is more than a recognizable topographical view. Looking at the ruined castle, the monumental bluff, and the vast dark forest in the foreground, it seems as if Zingg’s subject is the grandeur of nature itself.