German Expressionism: The Graphic Impulse and the MoMA Straggler
12 Jul 2011 Leave a Comment
in exhibits Tags: Brucke, Expressionism, Feininger, German, Kollwitz, Otto Dix
Otto Dix. The Sailor and the Girl, 1923
The Bridge (Die Brücke), the Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter), New Objectivity (Die Neue Sachlichkeit). These are all manifestations of German Expressionism from the early Twentieth Century. This is a movement in visual arts that gave voice to the anguish, disgust and flickering hopes of people in the German speaking world as they witnessed the disintegration and decay of society around them. It is this tragic context that gave them their inspiration and motivation to create truly exceptional work and it is the context which ultimately condemned them to obscurity.
For the past two months, the Museum of Modern Art in New York has had an exhibit of German Expressionist works on the sixth floor, nearly all of the works taken from the museum’s permanent collection. As the subtitle “The Graphic Impulse” implies, it consists mostly of printed work: lithographs, woodcuts, aquatints, illustrated books and pamphlets and posters with a few other works (paintings, sculpture, etc.) thrown in. It would be well worth the visit, except that, once again, I am seeing an exhibit on its last day and then writing about it, so forget it. However, since these works are in MoMA’s collection, it can be hoped that some of the work will be on display at any time.
The exhiibit begins with Die Brücke, a group of German artists who began working in the area of Dresden in the first years of the century, eventually moving to Berlin and losing themselves in the chaos of the First World War. The founding members of this group: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Erich Heckel and Fritz Bleyl were not trained as painters but rather as architects, and their approach to visual art was free of historical constraints and conventions. They took their inspiration from their immediate
Max Pechstein. Fischerboot. 1913. At Brücke Museum, Berlin
surroundings, both in the press of humanity around them and in the latest trends of the art world: Fauvism in France for its colors and the work of Edvard Munch in Norway for its expressionist angst. But apart from the angst, in those days there was still a sense of optimism about the future, and some peaceful and forward looking themes can be discerned in the jarring colors, jagged lines and sexually provocative works here. The group is filled out with later members Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein and Otto Mueller.
I know these artists from the wonderful museum in Berlin dedicated to them, called Die Brücke Museum. There one can see many oil paintings which, according to my guide at MoMA, were done by these artists almost as an afterthought, as show pieces for exhibitions and for the prestige and recognition that such works could provide the artists. The MoMA collection emphasizes the smaller but powerful printed works: lithographs and other prints which were the media that lent themselves to experimentation and freer forms of expression than oil on canvas. However, if you are a fairly simple minded art consumer like me, you may prefer the aesthetics of the paintings, like those in Berlin and the few that were here on display in New York for their aesthetic achievement.
Next, after this introductory section, the New York exhibit moves to Munich and the Blaue Reiter group. That group is represented here by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc with a couple of interested illustrated books and several paintings and prints. There is a spiritual feel to these works, especially the imagery of the horseman in Kandinsky’s painting and the naturalistic animism of Marc’s wildlife. Then on to Vienna, where Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele were working. Here the colors are often less vibrant and the subject matter darker as well. These artists did not work as a collective or ideologically unified group, but rather as rivals, and that antagonism seems to have infected the works in a creative way. The exhibit curators deftly juxtaposed works by the two artists in which they seem to present alternative forms of the same vision. The drawings and lithographs of these two artists are wonderful, and are much deserving of wider renown. They are forceful and iconoclastic and quite beautiful in spite of their intensely critical view of society.
Otto Dix. Corpse in Barbed Wire. 1924
Then the exhibit opens up. The Great War has begun and it has swallowed up the energy of the society, as well as most of the artists. All hope for the future seems futile, and some of the artists, such as Franz Marc are quickly killed, others, like Max Beckmann suffer nervous breakdowns and life changing depression. The ones who survive are forever changed by the brutal experience and their expressionism takes on a grotesqueness and ferocity that is impossible to describe. The set of 50 prints by Otto Dix depicting the brutality of the trenches that he survived for 4 years are like a ground zero in the midst of this collection. They are displayed all together, a series of devastatingly forceful images of ripped up faces, decomposing corpses and horrifying nightmares. Käthe Kollwitz, the one woman in the show, is also well represented here, with some powerful woodcuts illustrating the sorrow and despair of the first postwar years. Her 1920 woodcut In Memoriam Karl Liebknecht is a beautiful work, showing the body of the murdered communist revolutionary laid out on a bier, with a group of mourners looking on. It is bold and modern and truly of the time, yet it reflects a tradition of hagiographic lamentation scenes that goes back at least to Medieval and Renaissance depictions of Jesus, such as Mantegna’s Dead Christ with the body oddly foreshortened on its bed, and goes forward to the photographs of the dubious Che Guevara laid out on a wooden table in Bolivia. There are many lesser known artists here, interesting not only for their work but also for their often tragic biographies. The artist Wilhelm Lehmbruck is represented by some thin drypoint sketches and two massive sculptures of a delicately introspective man and woman, all produced in the few years before his suicide in 1919.
Käthe Kollwitz. In Memoriam Karl Liebknecht. 1920.
The final stylistic movement, Die Neue Sachlichkeit, or New Objectivity, is not only a new aesthetic style that attempts to bring the expressionist impulse to terms with the world around it, it is also a realization that the world of German culture had been mortally wounded by the constant upheaval and catastrophic political dynamics of the homeland. A level of cynicism and despair pervades these works as they resign themselves to representing disgust and horror without offering any glimmer of hope. They chronicle the life of Germany throughout the 20s and into the rise of Nazism, so who can blame them for their unmitigated gloom? Die Neue Sachlichkeit leads inevitably to a dead end. The repressive political forces which had been a constant theme have gotten the upper hand and taken their revenge. The Nazis label these artists as degenerate and destroy as much of their work as they can get their hands on, banishing it from public view. The revulsion that other cultures feel toward Nazi German considering all the suffering and loss that Hitler’s actions cause has made the world turn its back on these artists, making them twice victims. And The rooms end up with paintings showing the older post-war artists in self portrait, smoking cigarettes in exile at Midwestern U.S. universities and in New York parlors. They stare oddly out at the viewer, as though wondering where their world, and their messages have landed. The chaos that destroyed Germany also destroyed them, much of their works and their place in history.
My favorite painting in the show. Lyonel Feininger. Uprising. 1910. Feininger was an American member of the faculty at the Bauhaus, 1919-1932.
Visit the Brücke Museum on a trip to Berlin. It is not well known though it is filled with great art. Where the more famous Berlin museums, all centrally located on the museum island or elsewhere in the city center, are packed with tourists year round, the Brücke can be peaceful and uncrowded even in high season. That’s because it is nearly impossible to find without the help of informative Berliners! Visit the website and get careful directions to get there.
The Brücke Museum website here.
The MoMA pages dedicated to the exhibit are still up.
