DOCSLIB.ORG

Thistle- Painting]

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Thistle- Painting] DISTEL-BILD , 1924, 73 [THISTLE- PAINTING] AN ALLEGORY OF LOVE & LEARNING ANN STEPHEN SUMMARY The essay proposes a new reading for argues that the painting both gently mocks Distel-bild [Thistle-painting, 1924, 73], one and celebrates Johannes Itten’s role as a of Paul Klee’s Sonderklasse (special class) Bauhaus master and imagines how such of works that has long eluded interpreta- ideas would spread. This new interpreta- tion. Painted at the beginning of Klee’s third tion that aims to unlock the mystery of the year of teaching at the Bauhaus during a painting’s organic and geometric forms, is time of significant change, Distel-bild is no informed by the broader reassessment of ordinary landscape or garden setting as Klee as an intellectual engaged with con- the thistle, that is not a thistle, is a double- temporary ideas and avant-garde move- coded object. Adopting an allegorical mode, ments, rather than as a remote, naïve Klee casts the divisive debates of the early romantic. Bauhaus years in the language of a Hans . Christian Anderson fairy tale. The essay Distel-bild [Thistle-painting, 1924, 73] in Constructivist design by the newly-arrived the National Gallery of Victoria, the only master László Moholy-Nagy. The appoint- Paul Klee painting held in an Australian art ment of the Hungarian exile marked the museum, has eluded interpretation for al- decisive turn away from Expressionist my- most a century.1 (FIG. 1) The Australian art sticism and towards a more Constructivist historian Margaret Plant, who wrote a mo- orientation at the Bauhaus. nograph on Klee, described it as “a mys- Interest has been sparked in Distel-bild tery picture: the objects around the flower because it bears Klee’s inscription, “S. are indeterminate and involved in a drama – Cl”, the subject of considerable recent known only to their world”.2 New research research.3 This acronym that stands for on the painting, particularly on its Bauhaus Sonderklasse (Special class) was used context, provides the key to unlocking the by the artist to identify those of his works mystery of its organic and geometric forms. he considered to be of the highest qua- Such research is informed by the broader lity and were not to be sold. Klee scholar, reassessment of Klee as an intellectu- Marie Kakinuma who wrote the entry on al engaged with contemporary ideas and the Melbourne Klee in the catalogue of avant-garde movements, rather than as a Sonderklasse works, distinguished it from remote, naïve romantic. his pre-Bauhaus Distel paintings, which Distel-bild was painted in early 1924, at identified the prickly plant as emblematic of the beginning of Klee’s third year of tea- Gothic architecture, “symbolising a thorny ching at the Bauhaus during a time of sig- spiritual ascent”.4 For Distel-bild she sug- nificant change. The following year, after gests a fascinating Bauhausler reading, the school moved from Weimar to Dessau, speculating that the subject might indeed Klee’s teaching notes were published as concern the controversial expulsion of Jo- Pädagogisches Skizzenbuch (Pedagogical hannes Itten. In 1919 Walter Gropius had Sketchbook) as the “Bauhausbücher 2”, in a appointed Itten amongst the first Bauhaus ZWITSCHER-MASCHINE.ORG NO. 4 / AUTUMN 2017 ARTICLE / PAUL KLEE DISTEL-BILD 41 Fig. 1 Paul Klee masters, to establish the Vorkurs (Prelimi- Eva Forgács argues that Klee’s hiring had Distel-bild, 1924, 73 [Thistle- nary Course), and he became a charismatic been part of Gropius’s policy to “moderate painting] , gouache on canvas on figure at the school. Amongst his regular Itten’s influence”. 7 As she recounts, “even paper on cardboard, 18/16,5 cm x 40,6 cm, National Gallery of exercises was one that involved drawing a Paul Klee, whose usual taciturnity and im- Victoria, Melbourne thistle as an aid to sensitising students in partiality in public affairs earned him the ©National Gallery of Victoria, material studies, as he explained: nickname ‘The Good Lord’, was moved to Melbourne, Inv.Nr. 2999-4 “In front of me there is a thistle. My motor comment trying to moderate the passions, nerves feel a jagged, rapid movement. My from his own ethereal, cosmic viewpoint: ‘I senses, the sense of touch and face, grasp welcome the fact that forces so differently the sharp pointiness of its form, and my orientated are working together in our Bau- mind sees its nature […] It is obvious that haus. I also approve the conflict between I can draw a proper thistle only if the mo- these forces if its effect is evidenced in the vement of my hand, my eyes and my mind final accomplishment. To meet an obstacle correspond exactly to the intense pointed, is a good test of strength for every force – pricking, painful form of a thistle: which provided it is an obstacle of an objective na- means – character of movement equals ture”. 8 Itten finally resigned in March 1923. character of form. This is the main state- Kakinuma suggests that the geometric and ment of our whole research”.5 constructive forms of triangles, cross-like Itten’s teaching that combined sensory awa- bars and a circuit surrounding the plant in reness with spiritualism would assume the Distel-bild might allude to the new Cons- proportions of a cult-like following among tructivist tendencies in the Bauhaus pro- certain Bauhaus students. His messianic gram. Such a reading is consistent with Mazdaznan ideology, an orientalist esoteric Klee’s Seiltänzer, (Tightrope Walker) 1923, mysticism that swept through Germany in that has been interpreted as the artist’s own the early 1920s, was satirised by a cartoon balancing act within an increasingly Const- published in the Bauhaus edition of Theo ructivist-orientated Bauhaus.9 However, van Doesburg (under the pseudonym I.K. geometric forms were not only the domain Bonset)’s Dadaist magazine Mécano sho- of Constructivism. Klee was captivated by wing a bleary-eyed nudist bearing a thistle the abstract designs developed for Bau- confronting De Stijl’s “machine man”.6 (FIG. haus festivals, films and theatre, like those 2) By 1922 Itten was in open conflict with dancing coloured shapes in Ludwig Hirsch- Gropius’s plans for the school that had been feld Mack’s Farbenlicht-Spiel (Colour-light forced, by economic and political pressu- Plays) and Oscar Schlemmer’s Das Tria- res, to become more market-orientated. dische Ballett (Triadic Ballet) with its new ZWITSCHER-MASCHINE.ORG NO. 4 / AUTUMN 2017 ARTICLE / PAUL KLEE DISTEL-BILD 42 a square of red dots or “seeds” at its heart. In his lecture notes Klee famously descri- bed the process of reading a painting in terms of movement: “The eye must graze over the surface, grazing away and shar- pening one part after the other […] The eye follows the paths established for it in the work”.12 The visual paths of Distel-bild suggest a movement akin to reading as the eye moves along the top of the painted cloth from left to right, observing the frayed, un- even edge of its exaggerated horizontal for- mat while following a narrow path bordered by three linear forms, one straight and two curved. A subdued light leads down a diago- nal striped path or paling fence that opens like a gate onto the centre of the painting where a teardrop-shaped mask hovers on a triangular base above a bell-shaped bloom that springs from the glowing oval thistle. Another visual path takes in the dark blue foreground marked on one side by a diago- nal cross and on the other, by a small squa- re framed in a crescent at the bottom right- hand corner. A year earlier in the waterco- lour Seelen Wanderung (Transmigration of a Soul 1923, 133), Klee had made a verti- cal play between a crescent moon and an earthbound cross; here in Distel-bild both are grounded. The fallen crescent might represent another mystically-inclined mas- Fig. 2 Karl-Peter Röhl, Der Distelseher, vocabulary of geometric forms. If the dark ter, Lothar Schreyer, who left the Bauhaus Mécano No. Blue, 1922 and delicate Distel-bild, made a year after several months after Itten, following the Itten’s departure, is a veiled Bauhaus nar- failure of his play Mondspiel (Moon play) in rative, how do the elements in its abstract 1923.13 landscape contribute to this reading? In Distel-bild all the forms are phantom-li- Klee’s 1923 essay “Wege des Naturstudi- ke, their faintly glowing silhouettes outlined ums” (Ways of Nature Study) advocated that against the thinly washed, cool blue-grey a student’s “growth in the vision and con- ground. Klee used a similar quasi-cubist templation of nature enables him to rise effect of negative definition for several towards a metaphysical view of the world other works at this time, notably kleine and to form free abstract structures which Winterlandschaft mit dem Skiläufer, (small surpass schematic intention and achieve Winter landscape with a Skier, 1924, 85) and a new naturalness, the naturalness of the Ein Dorf als Reliefspiel (A village in play- work”.10 Distel-bild’s metaphysical narra- ful relief, 1925, 140) though Distel-bild is a tive appears to be enacted through a fairy darker, more layered landscape. Through tale about the life cycle of a thistle. The the transparent washes it is possible to see shallow, flattened space is theatrical, and each gesture and painted stroke, from the as Plant has observed, “most of Klee’s figu- faint blue dashes inside the top right cur- rative drawings and paintings and, indeed, ve to the dirty, reddish-brown blobs around many of his nature paintings, have a sense the cross.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Johannes Itten Wieder in Bern : Eine Ausstellung Über Das Frühe Bauhaus
    Johannes Itten wieder in Bern : eine Ausstellung über das frühe Bauhaus Autor(en): Höhne, Günter Objekttyp: Article Zeitschrift: Hochparterre : Zeitschrift für Architektur und Design Band (Jahr): 8 (1995) Heft 1-2 PDF erstellt am: 29.09.2021 Persistenter Link: http://doi.org/10.5169/seals-120140 Nutzungsbedingungen Die ETH-Bibliothek ist Anbieterin der digitalisierten Zeitschriften. Sie besitzt keine Urheberrechte an den Inhalten der Zeitschriften. Die Rechte liegen in der Regel bei den Herausgebern. Die auf der Plattform e-periodica veröffentlichten Dokumente stehen für nicht-kommerzielle Zwecke in Lehre und Forschung sowie für die private Nutzung frei zur Verfügung. Einzelne Dateien oder Ausdrucke aus diesem Angebot können zusammen mit diesen Nutzungsbedingungen und den korrekten Herkunftsbezeichnungen weitergegeben werden. Das Veröffentlichen von Bildern in Print- und Online-Publikationen ist nur mit vorheriger Genehmigung der Rechteinhaber erlaubt. Die systematische Speicherung von Teilen des elektronischen Angebots auf anderen Servern bedarf ebenfalls des schriftlichen Einverständnisses der Rechteinhaber. Haftungsausschluss Alle Angaben erfolgen ohne Gewähr für Vollständigkeit oder Richtigkeit. Es wird keine Haftung übernommen für Schäden durch die Verwendung von Informationen aus diesem Online-Angebot oder durch das Fehlen von Informationen. Dies gilt auch für Inhalte Dritter, die über dieses Angebot zugänglich sind. Ein Dienst der ETH-Bibliothek ETH Zürich, Rämistrasse 101, 8092 Zürich, Schweiz, www.library.ethz.ch http://www.e-periodica.ch dem Gesamtkunstwerk strebenden Aufbruchjahre des Bauhauses. Nun Johannes Itten wird das «vergessene» Bauhaus zugänglich, anschaulich erfahrbar gemacht. Und da ist an grossen Namen und Werken wahrlich kein Mangel: Neben Itten-Originalen sind viele wieder in Bern weitere, unter anderem von Muche, Klee, Feininger, Kandinsky, Schlemmer und Marcks präsentiert.
    [Show full text]
  • Surreal Visual Humor and Poster
    Fine Arts Status : Review ISSN: 1308 7290 (NWSAFA) Received: January 2016 ID: 2016.11.2.D0176 Accepted: April 2016 Doğan Arslan Istanbul Medeniyet University, [email protected], İstanbul-Turkey http://dx.doi.org/10.12739/NWSA.2016.11.2.D0176 HUMOR AND CRITICISM IN EUROPEAN ART ABSTRACT This article focused on the works of Bosh, Brughel, Archimboldo, Gillray, Grandville, Schön and Kubin, lived during and after the Renaissance, whose works contain humor and criticism. Although these artists lived in from different cultures and societies, their common tendencies were humor and criticism in their works. Due to the conditions of the period where these artists lived in, their artistic technic and style were different from each other, which effected humor and criticism in the works too. Analyzes and comments in this article are expected to provide information regarding the humor and criticism of today’s Europe. This research will indicate solid information regarding humor and tradition of criticism in Europe through comparisons and comments on the works of the artists. It is believed that, this research is considered to be useful for academicians, students, artists and readers who interested in humour and criticism in Europe. Keywords: Humour, Criticism, Bosch, Gillray, Grandville AVRUPA SANATINDA MİZAH VE ELEŞTİRİ ÖZ Bu makale, Avrupa Rönesans sanatı dönemi ve sonrasında yaşamış Bosch, Brueghel, Archimboldo, Gillray, Grandville, Schön ve Kubin gibi önemli sanatçıların çalışmalarında görülen mizah ve eleştiri üzerine kurgulanmıştır. Bahsedilen sanatçılar farklı toplum ve kültürde yaşamış olmasına rağmen, çalışmalarında ortak eğilim mizah ve eleştiriydi. Sanatçıların bulundukları dönemin şartları gereği çalışmalarındaki farklı teknik ve stiller, doğal olarak mizah ve eleştiriyi de etkilemiştir.
    [Show full text]
  • Bauhaus in the Balance
    PRESS RELEASE For Immediate Release Bauhaus in the Balance A selection of works by artists from the Bauhaus School Live sale on artnet Auctions from April 8 through 15, 2013 Josef Albers Ten Variants (portfolio of 10 prints), 1967 Serigraph/screenprint 17 x 17 in. Edition 135/200 Purchase now for US$28,000 New York / Berlin, April 8, 2013—artnet Auctions is proud to present Bauhaus in the Balance, a sale of 45 works, including pieces by the colorists Josef Albers (American/German, 1888–1976) and Wassily Kandinsky (Russian, 1866–1944), designs by Marcel Breuer (American/Hungarian, 1902– 1981), and photographs by Marianne Brandt (German, 1893–1983). The principle purpose of the Bauhaus was to integrate different disciplines of art; this created a cross-media dialogue, established a forum for the exchange of ideas, and cultivated a community that supports the arts. The sale will include works on paper, prints, photographs, sculpture, and Design, ranging in value from US$1,500 to over US$200,000. One highlight of the auction is Wassily Kandinsky’s Ohne Titel Composition (1923), which embodies the school’s mantra of education as an experience. As a teacher at the school, the artist conveyed his radical theories of capturing language and heightened expression through simple linear drawings. Kandinsky’s genius lied in his ability to create balance and structure with minimal use of line and space. The sale also features famed color theorist painter, Josef Albers, a student of Johannes Itten (Swiss, 1888–1967), who created the color wheel whilst at the Bauhaus. Walter Gropius (German, 1883– 1969), founder of the school, asked Albers to join the faculty in 1923.
    [Show full text]
  • Book Reviews / Aries 8 (2008) 91-112 Christoph Wagner, Das Bauhaus
    104 Book Reviews / Aries 8 (2008) 91-112 Christoph Wagner, Das Bauhaus und die Esoterik: Johannes Itten, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Bielefeld/Leipzig: Kerber Verlag 2005, 296 pp., ill. ISBN 3-938025-39-5 Th e Bauhaus has probably been the most influential design school in the twentieth century. During its short existence, from 1919 until 1933 when it was closed under nazi pressure, it was led by famous artists and architects: Walter Gropius, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Hannes Meyer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Oskar Schlemmer, among others. After its move to Dessau from Weimar in 1925, the Bauhaus became the fountainhead of function- alism—in German: Neue Sachlichkeit—in art, architecture and design. Its structure and its teachings were disseminated by students and teachers throughout the world through new institutions, thus firmly establishing the avant-garde reputation of the Bauhaus. Th e functionalist era of the Bauhaus has been cherished and cultivated in many studies, and particularly by the publications of the Bauhaus-Archiv in Berlin, which acquires and holds most of the archival material on the institute, its teachers and its students. Th us the functionalist aura of the institute as a whole was safeguarded and propagated. It was not until circa 1990 that in publications by the Bauhaus-Archiv itself it was mentioned, almost reluctantly, that 19th century occultism and other esoteric currents had been an important factor in the establishment of the school as such. Th is reluctance is understandable. Nazism and its connections with “racial theories” and other occultist ideas were a heavy historical burden not to be elaborated on too much, especially not in post-war Germany.
    [Show full text]
  • The Encounter Johannes Itten 24 Fj|I^V^^7^ 1^ Sliw XAJA^K^J QM*CU~-&SJ ^Y^^^Kwdi K\Ia Ft I ^ Ww^ Ml^T
    Originalveröffentlichung in: Thöner, Wolfgang (Hrsg.): Bauhaus : a conceptual model [Ausstellungskatalog], Ostfildern 2009, S. 23-26 ORIGINAL TITLE: Die Begegnung YEAR OF EXECUTION: 7976 MATERIAL: oil on canvas FORMAT: 105 x 80 cm LOANED BY: Kunsthaus Zurich, 1964/5 , • The Encounter Johannes Itten 24 fj|i^v^^7^ 1^ Sliw XAJA^K^J QM*CU~-&SJ ^Y^^^kwdi k\iA ft i ^ ww^ mL^t UAJ^CU. Aw^ia^j tao^; l^^^d^^ih^o^^^ — Wlm^ [}^AAe(^Mj L •^r^C^^^^-~^"•r^^^ ^ ^^-f^-j • -J A few years before his appointment at the Bauhaus, first in Stuttgart, then in Vienna, Johannes Itten made a series of abstract paintings that might be considered as models of Bauhaus painting avantla lettre: Horizontal-Vertikal from 1915, Tiefenstufen (Gradients) from 1915, The Encounter from 1916, Das Entzweite (The Divided), and Die Kreise (The Circle) from 1916. If the use of the term "avant-garde" to describe Utopian designs of aes­ thetic principles in the period before their establishment was ever valid, then, with a view to the Bauhaus, it fits well to this group of works by Johannes Itten. These paintings are characterized by an abstract geometric style, in which rectangular and circular or spiral shapes are combined with paradigmatic color constellations. In each of these paintings, Itten appears to test in an exemplary way fundamental principles of the form and color system of his abstract pictorial vocabulary: rectangle, square, circle, spiral, gradations of light and dark, and color contrasts. Each of these pictures has an exemplary character, without Itten having added further variations or even series to this form and color canon.
    [Show full text]
  • ALFRED KUBIN 1877 Leitmeritz/Bohemia - Zwickledt/Upper Austria 1959
    LE CLAIRE KUNST SEIT 1982 ALFRED KUBIN 1877 Leitmeritz/Bohemia - Zwickledt/Upper Austria 1959 Mann mit abgeschnittener Nase Pen and black ink, wash and spray, watercolour and colour crayon on firm wove paper; c.1904-7. Signed lower right: Kubin. Inscribed in pencil at the lower left: Kopf mit abgeschnittener Nase. Annotated on the verso: Mein Werk Abb. 30 327 x 253 mm LITERATURE: Alfred Kubin, Dämonen und Nachtgesichte, Dresden 1926, fig. 30 EXHIBITION: Alfred Kubin, Kunstmuseum Winterthur 1986, no. 115, repr. p.115 This early drawing immediately evokes a sinister vision of terrifying intensity – a characteristically Kubinesque depiction of the human face. The head appears to be mummified and a gaping void indicates where the nose once was. The sparse hair with its receding hairline accentuates the outline of the mask-like face which has the strange shimmer of a fleshless skull. The drawing is loaded with undertones of death. Alfred Kubin makes frequent reference to his experience of death in his autobiography.1 His mother died when he was a boy and her early death undoubtedly left an indelible psychological legacy. He made his first drawings at about that time. Thematically, these early sheets show the emergence of a tendency towards exaggeration and a liking for visionary fantasy.2 A tremendous curiosity for eerie events guided his early art.3 The origins of his artistic development and later literary career date from a very early age.4 Kubin regarded this densely worked autonomous drawing as so important that he reproduced it in his early publication Dämonen und Nachtgesichte.
    [Show full text]
  • Johannes Itten: Art As Life. Bauhaus Utopias and Documents of Reality
    Press Release Johannes Itten: Art as Life. 28.08.2019 Bauhaus Utopias and Documents of Reality 30.08.2019 – 02.02.2020 Johannes Itten: Art as Life. Bauhaus Utopias and Documents of Reality In the Bauhaus anniversary year of 2019, the Kunstmuseum Bern is devoting an exhibition to the major Swiss artist and Bauhaus Master Johannes Itten (1888-1967), which will for the first time focus on Itten’s utopian project of holistically merging life and art. Like very few other artists, Johannes Itten saw art and life as being closely connected; personal experiences and philosophical reflections are apparent in his work in many different ways. The central pieces in the exhibition are Itten’s diaries and sketchbooks, recently researched and never previously exhibited on this scale, which accompanied his artistic practice from 1913. In the context of key works from his painterly oeuvre with numerous pages from his diaries the exhibition sheds new light on Itten’s previously unknown form of disclosing the world through drawing, and the artistic working processes that emerged from it. Central to this are Itten’s diaries – newly researched and never previously shown on this scale – which are also his sketchbooks, and which, as blocks several hundred pages long, are being shown in their entire thematic range: they reveal not only Itten’s pioneering art-theoretical reflections, on colour theory amongst other things, but also his thoughts on an elementary theory of art, his studies of Old Masters, but also traces of his reading of the esoteric and scientific ideas of his time. «Using the example of Johannes Itten the exhibition places several established art-historical narratives of modern art under examination: more consistently than many others, Johannes Itten was a very early adopter of the conceptual concept of art and the ideas of the alternative ‹Lebensreform› movement with regard to the connection between art and life.
    [Show full text]
  • LYONEL FEININGER Cover of the Manifesto
    LYONEL FEININGER Cover of the manifesto »The01 ultimate aim of all creative Feininger’s Expressionist cathedral has three towers with star-topped spires, from which beams activity is the building,« states of light go out in various directions. The three spires stand for architecture, the arts, and the Walter Gropius’ Bauhaus manifesto. crafts. Naturally, architecture was represented by the central and tallest spire. The primacy He saw building as a social, intel- of architecture was unquestioned, and the study of architecture was to stand at the center of lectual,and symbolic activity, a education. The other arts and crafts were ancillary to it. union of genres and vocations, the But, as so often, there was a world of difference between the vision and the reality, for leveling of differences in status. The though Feininger’s visionary woodcut makes a clear affirmation, the training of architects Gothic cathedral epitomized this. played virtually no part in the early years of the Weimar Bauhaus. In 1923, Gropius was able to mount the International Architectural Exhibition, which he had put together in the context of the Bauhaus exhibition—the first presentation of modern architecture in the 1920s—but the setting up of the study of architecture as a Bauhaus training program did not take place until the Bauhaus moved to Dessau. Two versions: one goal Even before Lyonel Feininger became the first teacher to be appointed by Walter Gropius, in the spring of 1919, and to begin his activity at the newly founded Bauhaus, he was given the 1871 Born in New York on July 17 task of supplying a programmatic illustration for the Bauhaus manifesto.
    [Show full text]
  • The Blue Rider
    THE BLUE RIDER 55311_5312_Blauer_Reiter_s001-372.indd311_5312_Blauer_Reiter_s001-372.indd 1 222.04.132.04.13 111:091:09 2 55311_5312_Blauer_Reiter_s001-372.indd311_5312_Blauer_Reiter_s001-372.indd 2 222.04.132.04.13 111:091:09 HELMUT FRIEDEL ANNEGRET HOBERG THE BLUE RIDER IN THE LENBACHHAUS, MUNICH PRESTEL Munich London New York 55311_5312_Blauer_Reiter_s001-372.indd311_5312_Blauer_Reiter_s001-372.indd 3 222.04.132.04.13 111:091:09 55311_5312_Blauer_Reiter_s001-372.indd311_5312_Blauer_Reiter_s001-372.indd 4 222.04.132.04.13 111:091:09 CONTENTS Preface 7 Helmut Friedel 10 How the Blue Rider Came to the Lenbachhaus Annegret Hoberg 21 The Blue Rider – History and Ideas Plates 75 with commentaries by Annegret Hoberg WASSILY KANDINSKY (1–39) 76 FRANZ MARC (40 – 58) 156 GABRIELE MÜNTER (59–74) 196 AUGUST MACKE (75 – 88) 230 ROBERT DELAUNAY (89 – 90) 260 HEINRICH CAMPENDONK (91–92) 266 ALEXEI JAWLENSKY (93 –106) 272 MARIANNE VON WEREFKIN (107–109) 302 ALBERT BLOCH (110) 310 VLADIMIR BURLIUK (111) 314 ADRIAAN KORTEWEG (112 –113) 318 ALFRED KUBIN (114 –118) 324 PAUL KLEE (119 –132) 336 Bibliography 368 55311_5312_Blauer_Reiter_s001-372.indd311_5312_Blauer_Reiter_s001-372.indd 5 222.04.132.04.13 111:091:09 55311_5312_Blauer_Reiter_s001-372.indd311_5312_Blauer_Reiter_s001-372.indd 6 222.04.132.04.13 111:091:09 PREFACE 7 The Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter), the artists’ group formed by such important fi gures as Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Gabriele Münter, August Macke, Alexei Jawlensky, and Paul Klee, had a momentous and far-reaching impact on the art of the twentieth century not only in the art city Munich, but internationally as well. Their very particular kind of intensely colorful, expressive paint- ing, using a dense formal idiom that was moving toward abstraction, was based on a unique spiritual approach that opened up completely new possibilities for expression, ranging in style from a height- ened realism to abstraction.
    [Show full text]
  • Bauhaus-Now.Pdf
    CURATED BY ANN STEPHEN Bauhaus Now! Title Contributors Bauhaus Now! is published by 4 Director’s foreword Buxton Contemporary Bauhaus Now! — Prof Susan Best is Professor of Buxton Contemporary, University — Ryan Johnston University of Melbourne Art History and Theory at Griffith of Melbourne. 26 July – 20 October 2019 Authors University. Best is the author of Exhibition curated by Ann Stephen Susan Best, Ann Stephen Visualizing Feeling: Affect and the Cover image 12 Bauhaus Now! Feminine Avant-garde (2011) and Mikala Dwyer and Justene Williams, Director ISBN 978-0-6482584-5-2 Reparative Aesthetics: Witnessing Mondspiel / [Moon Play] 2019 — Ann Stephen Ryan Johnston in Contemporary Art Photography (details), mixed-media installation Artists (2016). She is currently completing comprising performance; video 24 A User’s Guide to Mondspiel / [Moon Play] Curator Mikala Dwyer a book titled Impersonality: (with performances by Phillip Melissa Keys Justene Williams Self and Other in Body Art and Adams and Deanne Butterworth); — Susan Best and Ann Stephen Michael Candy Performance (contracted to thistle garden; painted coffins; Collection and Peter D Cole Bloomsbury Philosophy). welded and painted sculpture Exhibition Manager Christopher Handran with crystals; rocking theremin Projects Katarina Paseta Shane Haseman — Dr Ann Stephen is an art historian sculptures; painted wooden 36 — Lantern Parade Gertrude Herzger-Seligmann and Senior Curator of the University sculptures; wall painting; fabric 40 — Thistle Garden Operations Manager Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack Art Gallery and Art Collection at banners; sculpture, fabric and clay Kate Fitzgerald Paul Klee the University of Sydney. Her books on scaffold; acrylic, collage and 44 — Shane Haseman, Triadic dance Rose Nolan include Modernism & Australia: fabric tassels on canvas.
    [Show full text]
  • 13771873 Lprob.Pdf
    4527_BlauerReiter_180211_ENG_rl.indd I 06.07.11 09:16 INVITATION It is often difÞ cult for art-lovers seeking an introduction to a subject to Þ nd the right approach amid the bewildering array of literature available. Read on; you’ll not be bored! The aim of this book is to provide an entertaining but well-found- ed introduction to the world of the artists’ group the Blue Rider, which ß ourished in German in the early years of the twentieth century. The Þ rst seven chapters lead readers through the exciting period from 1908 until the First World War and let them witness the birth of the group. The views of the artists are described as well as their often complicated personal relationships with each other. The most important works are introduced and their signiÞ cance examined. In the last chapter there is, literally, much to discover, including the places in Bavaria where the members of the Blue Rider left their traces. The museums where you can admire the works of Kandinsky & Co. will be described, as will, as far as is possible today, the locations where it all happened. Where did the artists live; where were their studios; and where was the famous salon of Marianne von Werefkin, in which the artists drank, smoked and spent long nights in animated discussion? My sincere thanks go to the great authority on the Blue Rider, Dr. Annegret Hoberg of the Lenbachhaus in Munich, who encour- aged me to embark on this project and to whom I am grateful for important advice.
    [Show full text]
  • Wassily Kandinsky Papers, 1911-1940 (Bulk 1921-1937)
    http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt1r29n4zp Online items available Finding aid for the Wassily Kandinsky papers, 1911-1940 (bulk 1921-1937) Isabella Zuralski. Finding aid for the Wassily Kandinsky 850910 1 papers, 1911-1940 (bulk 1921-1937) Descriptive Summary Title: Wassily Kandinsky papers Date (inclusive): 1911-1940 (bulk 1921-1937) Number: 850910 Creator/Collector: Kandinsky, Wassily Physical Description: 2 Linear Feet(3 boxes, 1 flat file folder) Repository: The Getty Research Institute Special Collections 1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100 Los Angeles 90049-1688 [email protected] URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/askref (310) 440-7390 Abstract: Russian-born artist considered to be one of the creators of abstract painting. Papers document Kandinsky's teachings at the Bauhaus, his writings, his involvement with the Russian Academy of Artistic Sciences (RAKhN) in Moscow, and his professional contacts with art dealers, artists, collectors, and publishers. Request Materials: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the catalog record for this collection. Click here for the access policy . Language: Collection material is in German and Russian with some English and French. Biographical / Historical Note Wasily Kandinsky [Vasilii Vasil'evich Kandinskii] was born in 1866 in Moscow, Russia and died in 1944 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. He is considered one of the first creators of purely abstract painting. In 1896, after academic studies and initial career in law and social sciences, Kandinsky turned down an offer of professorship in jurisprudence, and together with his first wife Anja Shemiakina, left Russia for Munich with the intention of becoming a painter.
    [Show full text]