A half hour north of Fredericksburg in the Texas Hill Country lie a pair of enormous pink granite domes, the stubby remains of an ancient volcanic vent formed long before the dinosaurs when Texas was a shallow, 
blue sea and not a deep, red state. The domes have always been hard for people to miss, with their striking pastel colors among the dry, scrubby limestone and live oak landscape. Native Americans camped here, where they found pooled water even in the harshest seasons. Artists have come here too, trekking through the cactus to catch the colors of what has become known as Enchanted Rock State Natural Area. https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/enchanted-rock One of the earliest of those artists was Herman Lungkwitz, a German painter with an adventurous spirit and keen eye for Hill Country colors. I went there to paint recently and see what Lungkwitz saw.
Lungkwitz came in the wave of German immigrants who settled in Texas in the middle of the 19th century. A trained artist, Lungkwitz must have had more artistic inspiration than
pioneer know how, settling in the middle of Comanche country to farm and ranch. I’m not sure he had much success in that endeavor. Farming the rough soil was no easy task and the sometimes treacherous weather was unlike anything a European immigrant could have prepared for. Lungkwitz ‘s brother-in-law drowned one winter in a Pedernales River flash flood, a sad event that happens even today. Lungkwitz
eventually gave up on Hill Country farming, moved to Austin and found a government job. But for decades he dedicated himself to his painting and captured on canvas priceless images of the wild land that was soon full of people. He was not the only German immigrant to bring artist tools to their new home. Carl Iwonski, Richard Petri (Lungkwitz’s
brother-in-law who died young), Elisaet Ney and others did the same, giving art lessons and trying to make ends meet in rougher times. Whatever it was that inspired these people to take the day off from their labors to head outdoors with paint, pencils and a box lunch, I think I get it. Lungkwitz painted the rivers and creeks in his area, spots on Austin’s Shoal Creek and the Colorado among them. I have tried to locate some of the local spots in his very detailed paintings, but Austin is anything but the same as it was back then.
Lungkwitz loved to paint around the area we call Enchanted Rock and painted multiple landscapes featuring the big rocky domes in the distance. Of those particular outings, Lungkwitz wrote about how beautiful but remote and hard to get to the place was, noting there were no nearby homes to visit and “. . . one can only camp out.” I get that, too.
The area in Gillespie County Lungkwitz loved to paint is still lovely and is now one of the state’s most popular parks. We can thank Lady Bird Johnson for that. Make a reservation before your drive all the way out to Enchanted Rock; trust me. The place is a field day for photographers, plein air 
painters or people who just dig the vibe. From dawn to dusk, the sunlight hitting the rocks creates dramatic and fast-changing shadows and colors in varying hues, from pale rosy pink to dusty violet. Lichen grows on the surface of the rocks in a half dozen colors, from blue-green to red-orange. Enormous, rough edged boulders the size of houses litter areas at the base of the domes like an ancient construction site that was suddenly
abandoned when the giant masons knocked off work. The area’s recent rainfall had yielded some vivid greens and grass grew where the moisture had run off the hard granite. In the morning, I found a shady spot next to a Christmas cactus on the southwestern corner of the big dome and got to work painting an array of boulders. I am sure these boulders had been there for millennias. But they seemed to project a latent motion like they might just roll further downhill if the “enchantment” was just right. I finished an oil sketch before lunch, laying in shadows first and keeping notes on the key colors to use later on a larger painting at home. Packing up my gear to hike out, I wondered if old Herman had stopped to admire those boulders. He like painting rock, too.
