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Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Blues in the soul…
The self-appointed “leader” of the artists’ group Die Brücke (Bridge), founded in Dresden in 1905, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was a key figure in the early development of German Expressionism. His first works show the influence of Impressionism, Post-impressionism and Jugendstil, but by about 1909, Kirchner was painting in a distinctive, expressive manner with bold, loose brushwork, vibrant and nonnaturalistic colours and heightened gestures. He worked in the studio from sketches made very rapidly from life, often from moving figures, from scenes of life out in the city or from the Die Brücke group’s trips to the countryside. A little later he began making roughly hewn sculptures from single blocks of wood.…
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[Part 4/6] The Bridge Die Brücke, le pont – Bridging Two Worlds
An important early statement of intent came in 1906. In the catalogue to their first group exhibition, held in Löbtau, Dresden, they issued their rallying cry. This was in the form of a founding “manifesto” of the Künstlergruppe Brücke (Bridge Artists’ Group). Printed in stylized, quasi-primitive lettering, the text reads: WITH FAITH IN DEVELOPMENT AND IN A NEW GENERATION OF CREATORS AND APPRECIATORS, WE CALL TOGETHER ALL YOUTH. AS YOUTH, WE CARRY THE FUTURE AND WANT TO CREATE FOR OURSELVES FREEDOM OF LIFE AND OF MOVEMENT AGAINST THE LONG-ESTABLISHED OLDER FORCES. EVERYONE WHO WITH IMMEDIACY AND AUTHENTICITY CONVEYS THAT WHICH DRIVES HIM TO CREATE BELONGS WITH US. The “drive” to…
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[Part 3/6] Expressionism: The Revolution of Woman: Rosa Luxemburg, Paula Modersohn, Käthe Kollwitz…
At the beginning of the twentieth century, two of Germany’s most distinctive and original artists were women: Paula Modersohn-Becker and Käthe Kollwitz. Kollwitz had a long, prolific career that lasted from the 1890s until her death – just days before the end of the Second World War – well after Expressionism’s demise. Like Munch, her work often deals with profound emotion, birth, suffering and death. But it is otherwise very different. His work emerged from a Symbolist, bohemian milieu, pungent with sex and decadence, on the one hand, and a highly personal, subjective sensitivity to the natural sublime on the other. Hers came from a Realist tradition of humane socio-political…
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[Part 2/6] Expressionism: The Battle of Emotions
The era of German Expressionism was finally extinguished by the Nazi dictatorship in 1933. But its most incandescent phase of 1910-1920 left a legacy that has caused reverberations ever since. It was a period of intellectual adventure, passionate idealism, and deep yearnings for spiritual renewal. Increasingly, as some artists recognized the political danger of Expressionism’s characteristic inwardness, they became more committed to exploring its potential for political engagement or wider social reform. But utopian aspirations and the high stakes involved in ascribing a redemptive function to art meant that Expressionism also bore an immense potential for despair, disillusionment and atrophy. Along with works of profound poignancy, it also produced a…
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David Hockney Pulls Out His Mushroom Trip
With Amsterdam just a stone’s throw away from his native England, there’s no way David Hockney didn’t take weekend trips to gather a little inspiration. With his landscapes breathing and ever-so-subtly undulating, Hockney has, in his art work, rather astutely recreated the kind of mushroom trip that the majority of festival-goers revel in: a magical connection with those insanely charming and huggable trees. Seemingly familiar, the works trick the viewer into recalling memories of frolics in the woods (both authentic and false memories), the works play on vivid colour, scale and distance, and leading lines to push our psyches into the surreal. Reminiscent of A Scanner Darkly the line between…
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Camino del éxtasis
¿Cuántas maneras hay de alcanzar el éxtasis? La primera respuesta es evidente, todos hemos declarado en alguna ocasión haber alcanzado ese estado momentáneo de satisfacción y armonización de los sentidos en la compañía adecuada, aunque en realidad la definición de la palabra únicamente hace referencia al embargo del alma por un sentimiento de admiración o alegría. Entonces, ¿cuál de las dos acepciones es más cierta? Pues ambas, sin duda alguna. Porque no sólo existe el éxtasis sexual sino que existe también el éxtasis místico, y si no que se lo pregunten a Santa Teresa. Sin embargo, esto no nos aclara todavía la cantidad de maneras que existen de poder alcanzar…
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Modernismo o modernos
Hoy en día cuando oímos la palabra moderno inmediatamente la asociamos con esas personas que últimamente se han apoderado de las calles con una estética bastante definida que no deja indiferente a nadie y que les impide pasar desapercibidos. Los elementos comunes que los caracterizan son sin duda la ropa vintage y las «gafapastas». No hay mucho que se pueda objetar sobre la estrategia comercial de los vendedores de ropa de segunda mano para reactivar sus ventas y conseguir que todo un colectivo haga de la ropa vieja y usada una marca de identidad, aunque se podría argumentar que en muchas ocasiones la etiqueta vintage, irónicamente, parece convertir los viejos…
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Und das ist also Kunst? Will Grohmann im Netzwerk der Moderne
Der deutsche Kunsthistoriker Will Grohmann (1887-1968) ist ein großer Name in der Kunstgeschichte: er gilt als einer der einflussreichsten deutschen Kunsthistoriker und -kritiker des 20. Jahrhunderts – und gerade in diesem Jahrhundert gab es viel zu tun. Den Begriff ‚Kunst‘ in Worte zu fassen oder gar eine einheitliche Definition für Kunst zu finden, bereitet nicht nur den Kunsthistorikern seit jeher Kopfzerbrechen. Die um den Begriff ‚Kunst‘ gezogene Grenze wurde im Laufe der Geschichte stetig ausgedehnt und neu gesteckt. Grob zusammengefasst, diente Kunst zunächst als Ausdrucksmittel kultischer, mythischer und religiöser Erzählungen (Antike und Mittelalter). Die niederländischen Genredarstellungen bewiesen dann, dass Kunst nicht nur christliche und historische Sujets darzustellen vermag, sondern zugleich…
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