Chapel in the Countryside – "Capelle an der Mosel" – Carl Schlesinger – Catholic Art – Catholic Gift – Archival Quality

There used to be lots of chapels and wayside shrines like this dreamy one from the wine country of Mosel, Germany. The artist, Carl Schlesinger, made a huge career out of painting gorgeous rustic scenes of peasant and countryside life. Idealzed, yes, but realstic too: this is how women dressed, this is how a candlelit shrine looked in daytime, even the sailboat would look its best with the wind just so and the perfect, late afternoon light making it glow. We would love to put down our work, or even bring our rake with us as this one woman has, and take a break at a shrine like this, kneeling in the little space, and making our afternoon prayers to God. Carl Schlesinger (1825-1893) was born in Hamburg and mainly did beautiful, Disney-like "genre" paintings, as did his brother, Felix Schlesinger (1833-1910). Both were widely collected artists of the Düsseldorf School, which featured meticulously detailed landscapes that had that "ideal realism" and often depcited religious or allegorical