For the past forty years, Jurgen Schilling (b. 1954) has been drawing the landscape of southern France. The art historian Wilhelm Schlink has accompanied his career from the beginning as a friend and collaborative thinker. Schlink describes in lively manner the artist’s approaches and reflections, especially against the background of the current debate about contemporary interpretations of the landscape.

Since the 1970s Jurgen Schilling has found inspiration in the rough countryside between the Mediterranean, the Corbieres and the Minervois, where the natural elements can be experienced at first hand. Based on his studies of art history and philosophy relating to the broad field of landscape representation, he has created an oeuvre driven by the imperative of doing justice to events and experiences. Schilling uses in his work the raw materials and pigments found on location. A first retrospective of his work was held in Carcassonne in 2012.