German Baroque painter and etcher. From 1729 he was court painter in Arnstadt, then from 1738 court painter in Dresden. He specialized in landscape painting. The invention of pastel has frequently been accredited to him, but the claim cannot be substantiated, as drawing in coloured chalks had been practiced long before. Thiele was perhaps the first to carry the art to perfection in Germany.
Our gaze roams from the vineyards on the slopes of Loessnitz into the far distance, where the city of Dresden appears as a silhouette, the tower of the Hofkirche still incomplete. The striking outlines of Alpsandsteingebirge can be seen on the horizon, with the fortress of K�nigstein standing out most noticeably.
Thiele is at the peak of his abilities in this painting: the landscape swings rhythmically with the river and the chains of hills, until the contours all dissolve in the background. A feeling of distance is produced by the dark brown passages at the front. Late seventeenth-century landscapes, such as those of Pieter Gysels, perhaps, may have stimulated this view.
