ART HISTORY 132 German Expressionism

German Expressionism: Der Blaue Reiter (“The Blue Rider”) aim: unrestricted freedom of expression name: –derived from K’s drawing on cover of Almanac featuring blue horseman –blue also Marc's favorite color –motif of horse favorite subject for K & M exhibition history: –December 1911: launched in Munich featured 43 artists (including Rousseau and Delaunay) –1912: second exhibition (Munich) grander scale 315 works by 31 artists (including Picasso, Braque, Klee and Goncharova) –1913: Kandinsky, Marc, and Klee exhibited together at influential “First German Salon d’Automne” in Berlin

Wassily Kandinsky ( ) biography: influence of music –K learned piano & cello at early age –fascinated by music’s emotional power allows freedom of interpretation not based on literal qualities; instead, abstract saw color, as he heard music –used color in highly theoretical way tone  timbre hue  pitch saturation  volume –relate to Schönberg’s First String Quartet (1905) abandons tonal & harmonic conventions radically opens musical compositional structures chromatic structure defined as a “developing variation” career: –studied law & economics at Univ. of Moscow (1886) –lectured at Moscow Faculty of Law –attended Impressionist exhibition (1895) –left Moscow for Munich to study life-drawing, sketching & anatomy (1897)

German Expressionism: Der Blaue Reiter Kandinsky’s On the Spiritual in Art (December 1911) –treatise about non-objectivity; saw it as future for innovative visual art –based on artist’s emotions, rather than objective reality or materialism “interior necessity” intuition vs. rationality –form: outward visual expression of artist’s inward needs –color: liberated from form (see Fauvism) –composition: described in overtly musical terms 1)“melodic” –subordinated to a clearly apparent form (e.g., geometrical forms or simple lines that create general movement  Cezanne’s Large Bathers) 2) “symphonic” –complex; consisting of several forms –principal form may externally be very hard to find –conclusion: musical metaphor to describe deliberately cloaked pictorial construction of form and color

Kandinsky’s Composition IV (1911)

Kandinsky’s Composition VII (1913)

Kandinsky Composition VIII (1923) –theme: moves from apocalyptic emotion to geometrical rhythm –aesthetic: see influence of Russian Constructivism absorbed by K while in Russia prior to return to Germany to teach at Bauhaus –form: greater compositional role than color –composition. dynamic (symphonic) –color: colors w/in forms energize their geometry –spatial order: undefined space background enhances dynamism layered colors define depth –forms recede & advance creating quasi- “push- pull” effect

Franz Marc ( ) biography: –father  professional landscape painter –originally a theology student –trained at Munich Academy of Art –travels to Paris (1903) where he spends several months, also visiting Brittany excited by Impressionists –runs away to Paris, abandoning fiancé day before marriage ceremony (1907) –return to Paris: again entranced by Impressionists discovers work of Gauguin and Van Gogh began intensive study of animals which lead to his mature style meets August Macke –Introduces him to Fauves –views Matisse exhibit –introduces M to future patron –WWI: volunteers; dies near Verdun

Marc Blue Horse (1911)Blue Horse –aesthetic::mature style mixture of Romanticism, Expressionism and Symbolism –motif: animal purity and communion w/ nature that humans had lost “the irreligious humanity which lived all around me did not excite my true feelings, whereas the virgin feeling for life of the animal world set alight everything good in me” –spatial order: 3-d –perspective: linear & aerial –light/shadow: establishes volume vs. fracturing form & space –color: emotional values blue  male principle –astringent and spiritual yellow  female principle –gentle and spiritual red  matter –brutal and heavy –always opposed/overcome

Marc’s Fate of the Animals (1913)

Marc’s Fighting Forms (1914)

Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945) biography: –father  radical Social democrat –mother  daughter of Lutheran pastor expelled from official state church in Prussia –Oct 1914: lost youngest son on battlefield during World War I training: influenced by grandfather's lessons in religion and socialism –1888: Women's Art School (Munich) –twice visited Paris; enrolled at Académie Julian to learn sculpture themes: tragedy of war during first half of 20C subject matter: human condition for less fortunate that embraced victims of poverty, hunger, and war narrative tone: empathetic political ideology: committed socialist & pacifist medium: graphic arts

Kollwitz Woman with Dead Child (1903) –motif: pieta –biography: subsequently lost youngest son on battlefield during World War I (Oct 1914) –color scheme: prints on themes of social comment were carried out predominantly in black and white –human form: sculptural massiveness 1904: K attends Académie Julian where she learnt the basic principles of sculpture –composition: crouching, naked female figure w/ child on her lap –spatial order: ambiguous –light/shadow: chiaroscuro effects

Kollwitz Help Russia(1921) –“People from bourgeois sphere were altogether w/out appeal or interest. All middle-class life seemed pedantic to me. On the other hand, I felt proletariat had guts. It was not until much later... that I was powerfully moved by the fate of the proletariat and everything connected w/ its way of life.... –“… compassion and commiseration were at first of very little importance in attracting me to the representation of proletarian life; what mattered was simply that I found it beautiful."

Die Brücke ( ) art movement: “The Bridge” association of artists linking past to future worked together in rented storefront studios program: “protest” art –drawn together by what they were against, rather than in favor of –call on all youth to fight for greater artistic freedom against older, well-established powers style: expressive possibilities of color, form & compositional distortions –inspired by van Gogh’s clear expression of “inner-necessity” vs. Impressionism interest in material world & finesse –rapid development of personal styles –Fauvist strong colors (influenced by Matisse exhibit in Berlin in 1908) media/techniques: –life drawing in studios –“plein air” (e.g., Moritzburg lakes near Dresden, at the island of Fehmarn) –woodcuts, lithographs, and drawings

Ludwig Kirchner ( ) Self-Portrait (1905) –founder of Die Brücke –training: studies architecture in Dresden (1901) studies painting in Munich ( ) short stay in Nuremberg, –views Dürer’s original woodblocks (c. 1500) –figures: non-academic “fifteen-minute nudes” attempt to directly access motif natural poses angular physical features no regard for anatomical correctness or spatial relations

Kirchner Two Women in the Street (1913) –aesthetic: permutation of Fauvism –subject: mocks bourgeoisie –spatial order: compressed –perspective: tilted –figures: grotesque; distorted brutal simplifications jagged & geometric angular & elongated features –composition: dynamic –color: vibrant/complimentary, yet garish

Kirchner Self-Portrait as Soldier (1915) –biography: WWI mobilized to field artillery suffers nervous breakdown –brushwork: painterly –perspective: shallow; compressed –figures: angular –setting: artist’s studio nude model paintings placed against walls symbolic mutilation –bloody stump cut off at wrist, instead of paintbrush

Emile Nolde ( ) biography: –1884 and 1888: trained as craftsman in furniture –1889: School of Applied Arts in Karlsruhe – : drawing instructor in SW –1898: rejected by Munich Academy – : spent next three years taking private painting classes, visiting Paris, and becoming familiar w/ Impressionism career: –already 31 by time he pursued career as an artist –not original member of Die Brücke; joins in 1906 –resigns from group in 1907 group pressure to develop style more closely aligned to other members as a result, works in isolation –themes: religious nudes landscapes

Nolde Crucifixion (c. 1915) –aesthetic: abstract –subject: religious (see Gauguin) –tone: visceral & forceful –spatial order: ambiguous setting –figures: grotesque bloody wounds rugged facial features flattened volumes –color: vibrant; large & unmodulated –brushwork: crude “impasto”

Neue Sachlichkeit (“New Objectivity”) 1923: Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, director of Kunsthalle in Mannheim, coined the term –“What we are displaying here is distinguished by — in itself purely external — characteristics of objectivity w/ which artists express themselves” –aim to "tear the objective form of the world of contemporary facts and represent current experience in its tempo and fevered temperature” themes: to present a direct/honest image of society & war subject matter: Romantic –attacked society they felt perpetuated inequalities reaction to firsthand WWI experience urban activity collective beliefs, rather than personal tone: harsh, bitter principal artists: –Grosz ( ) –Beckman ( ) –Dix ( )

George Grosz ( ) Hunger (c. 1915) –aesthetic: Expressionistic linear “angst” compressed spatial order –theme: indictment of economic effect on proletariat –figures: realistic facial features clothing –perspective: linear

Grosz Eclipse of the Sun (1925) –aesthetic: Romantic –theme: post-WWI society –figures: caricatured –tone: satirical –composition: dynamic –color: vibrant & complimentary –perspective: tilted –iconography: militaristic religious economic

Otto Dix ( ) training: entered Academy of Applied Arts (1910) biography: WWI commander of machine gun unit later describe recurring nightmare in which he crawled through destroyed houses career: –founder of Dresden Secession group (1919) –joins Berlin Secession (1924) themes: Romantic –modern war’s violence verging on savagery –aftermath of war –scornful portrayal Germany's Weimar Republic

Dix –Skull (1924) theme: horror of war medium: graphic arts aesthetic: grotesque composition: dynamic color: monochromatic shadow: chiaroscuro

Dix’s The War ( )

Max Beckmann ( ) biography: traumatic experiences of WWI career: dramatic transformation from academic style to distortions of figure and space –fortunes changed w/ rise of Hitler 1933: dismissed from teaching 1937: > 500 of B’s works confiscated from German museums; several put on display in “Degenerate Art” exhibition in Munich essay: “The Artist in the State” (1927) –artist as conscious shaper of transcendent idea – “Art is the mirror of the God that humanity is” –“Art becomes a symbol and source of power for the partly still dormant power in responsible human beings”

Beckmann Deposition (1917) –aesthetic: expressionistic –influence: German Gothic –perspective: tilted –figures: angular & elongated –composition: dynamic –color: muted flesh tones –iconography: accurate –perspective: deliberately mishandled

Beckmann’s Night ( )

Beckmann’s Departure (1933)Departure

IMAGE INDEX Slide 2:Photograph of Wassily KANDINSKY. Slide 4:KANDINSKY. Sketch for the Blaue Reiter Almanac (1911), Watercolor, 11 3/8 x 8 ¼ in. Slide 5:KANDINSKY. Murnau with Church (1910), Oil on cardboard, 25 1/2” x 19 3/4”, Lenbachhaus, Munich. Slide 6:KANDINSKY. Composition IV (1911), Oil on canvas, 62 7/8 x 98 5/8 in., Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfallen, Dusseldorf, Germany. Slide 7:KANDINSKY. Composition VII (1913), Oil on canvas, 6’ 6 ¾ in. x 9’ 11 1/8 in., Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. Slide 8:KANDINSKY. Composition VIII (1923), Oil on canvas, 55 1/8 x 79 1/8 in., Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Slide 9:MACKE, August. Portrait of Franz Marc (1910), Oil on canvas, Nationalgalarie, Berlin. Slide 10:MARC, Franz. Blue Horse (1911), Oil on canvas, Oil on canvas, x 84.5 cm., Stadtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich.

IMAGE INDEX Slide 11:MARC, Franz. The Fate of the Animals (1913), Oil on canvas, 196 x 266 cm., Kunstmuseum, Basel, Switzerland. Slide 12:MARC, Franz. Fighting Forms (1914), Oil on canvas, 91 x 131 cm., Staatsgalerie moderner Kunst, Munich. Slide 13:Photograph of Käthe KOLLWITZ. Slide 14:KOLLWITZ, Käthe. Woman with Dead Child (1903), etching, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Slide 15:KOLLWITZ, Käthe. Help Russia (1921), Lithograph, 15 ¾ x 18 ¾ in., Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. Slide 16:PECHSTEIN, Max. Poster for Die Brücke Exhibition (c. 1910). Slide 17:KIRCHNER, Ludwig. Self-Portrait (c. 1910), woodcut.

IMAGE INDEX Slide 18:KIRCHNER. Two Women in the Street (c. 1915), Oil on canvas, x 91 cm., Dusseldorf, Germany. Slide 19:KIRCHNER. Self-portrait as Soldier (1915), Oil on canvas, 27 1/4 x 24 in., Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio. Slide 20:NOLDE. The Prophet (1912), Private Collection. Slide 21:NOLDE, Emil. Dance Around the Golden Calf (1910), Oil on canvas, 88 x cm., Staatsgalerie moderner Kunst, Munich. Slide 22:NOLDE. Crucifixion (1912), Oil on canvas, x cm, Nolde-Stiftung Seebull. Slide 23: GROSZ. Hunger (1915), Pen and ink. Slide 24:GROSZ. Eclipse of Sun (1926), Oil on canvas, 210 x 184 cm., Heckscher Museum, Huntington, NY.

IMAGE INDEX Slide 26:DIX. Self-Portrait as a Soldier (1914), ink and watercolor on paper, 68 x 53.5 cm, Municipal Gallery, Stuttgart. Slide 27:DIX. Skull (1924), Historial de la Grande Guerre, Péronne. Slide 28:DIX. The War ( ), Oil on canvas, Gemäldegalerie Neue Meister, Dresden Slide 29:BECKMANN. Self-Portrait (c. 1925). Slide 30:BECKMANN. Deposition (1917), Oil on canvas, 59 1/2 x 50 3/4 in., The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. Slide 31:BECKMANN. Night ( ), Oil on canvas, 4’4 3/8” x 5’ ¼”, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düseldorf.