Landscape painting as open-air painting was discovered in the 19th century. Also in East Prussia artists moved to the countryside. Beside the steep coast of the Samland (also called Sambia) they were fascinated by the bare dunes of the Curonian Spit. At the end of the 19th century the fishing village of Nidden (today Nida) with its guesthouse Blode had developed into a place for artists.
Ernst Bischoff-Culm (1870-1917) came with other impressionist painters. The important expressionist Max Pechstein (1881-1955) was also a frequent guest.
After the First World War Nida was annexed by Lithuania. Tourism developed only slowly. Most of the artists came in the 1930s. The centre of the artists' colony, the hotel "Hermann Blode" with 100 beds, was run by the painter Ernst Mollenhauer (1892-1963). After 1945 Nida was not accessible for decades. However, many painters created works in memory of the fascination of this place. The painting tradition is continued in Nida, which is now Lithuanian.
Illustration:
The hotel of Hermann Blode in Nida, photo around 1940.