Taking and Denying Challenging Canons in Arts and Philosophy edited by Giovanni Argan, Maria Redaelli, Alexandra Timonina Comparing the Cologne Sonderbund of 1912 and the Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition in London Alexandra Timonina Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia Abstract The article examines the agendas of the International Art Exhibition of the West German Sonderbund held in Cologne in 1912 and the Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition organised in London the same year, by contrasting their historical contexts and comparing their theoretical backgrounds. While the shows varied slightly in ap- proach, both sought to give a systematic overview of the latest trends in art, which was then marketed mainly by private dealers. They addressed similar issues, such as defining the inherited tradition and topical dilemmas about the autonomy of painting and its decorative potential. The paper will discuss the emphasis on the progressive timeline and international outlook on modern art they formulated. It will also revisit the role of these exhibitions in light of the currently expanding discussion of the mechanisms that shaped the canon of European modernism. Keywords Modernism. Canon. Expressionism. Post-Impressionism. Roger Fry. Summary 1 Tracing Genealogies within the Turn-of-the Century Art Exhibitions. – 2 The Sonderbund Model. Between the Marketplace and Secessionist Rhetoric. – 3 Transformations of Roger Fry’s Project. – 4 Modernist Canons and the Use of History. Quaderni di Venezia Arti 4 ISBN [ebook] 978-88-6969-462-2 | ISBN [print] 978-88-6969-463-9 Edizioni Open access 255 Ca’Foscari Published 2020-12-22 © 2020 Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution alone DOI 10.30687/978-88-6969-462-2/013 Alexandra Timonina Comparing the Cologne Sonderbund of 1912 and the Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition in London We know, of course, that there are affinities between modern artists and their remotest ancestors […]. It is just the greatest art of all ages that shows those affinities, nay more, that lives by them. (Meier-Graefe [1904] 1908, 1: 4) 1 Tracing Genealogies within the Turn-of-the-Century Art Exhibitions The impact of exhibitions on the spread of modernist movements is now seen as pivotal. Critical examination of art exhibitions be- gan in the 1950s and was concurrent with studies of the World Fairs and the historical reevaluation of early twentieth-century art. Since then, the history of European modernism has often been present- ed as a process marked by a series of groundbreaking exhibitions, starting with one or another decisive art event. Much literature on the subject has reproduced this progressive scheme by bringing to- gether a sequence of case studies that largely emphasise the global character of the artistic process in Europe at the turn of the centu- ry. There are lists of canonical art shows that shaped art history, be- cause they prophetically showed new art to a hostile and unprepared public. Other studies bring to light the ups and downs of single ex- hibition societies, maintaining, however, primarily the optics of de- velopment and emphasising the role of the modernist discourse and its onward march.1 Only in the last couple of decades have we start- ed to see studies aiming to deconstruct the mechanisms that drove the formation of the modernist canon.2 It is vital to look at the exhi- bitions not only to identify what they presented but, most important- ly, to understand what historiographical constructions they employed to justify the legitimacy of the new art they promoted. Several exhibitions organised at the beginning of the 1910s became widely acknowledged to have determined the reception of modern- ist art. The shows are noted to have fostered its commercial success and its influence over artists outside France at a time when it was still largely unknown to broader audiences and not yet fully appreciated by institutions and critics. Among them were two exhibitions mount- ed one after another in 1912: the Internationale Kunstausstellung des 1 For example, some excellent and sourceful works, such as the two volume anthology Exhibitions that Made Art History by Bruce Altshuler and his monograph on the avant- garde shows or the study on the Munich Secession by Maria Makela to one extent or an- other are, however, biased by these models. See Altshuler 1994, 2008, 2013; Makela 1990. 2 For example, a profound reconsideration of the art system in Europe in the late 19th early 20th century made by Robert Jensen (1996) or a collection of essays edited by An- na Brzyski (2007) that seeks to approach the subject of canons in art history highlight- ing their diversity and relativity. Quaderni di Venezia Arti 4 256 Taking and Denying, 255-274 Alexandra Timonina Comparing the Cologne Sonderbund of 1912 and the Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition in London Sonderbunds westdeutscher Kunstfreunde und Künstler (International Art Exhibition of the West German Special League of Art Lovers and Artists) set up in Cologne, and the Second Post-Impressionist Exhibi- tion organised in London, mounted at Grafton Galleries by the Brit- ish critic and art historian Roger Fry. They were closely connected and dealt with similar aesthetic questions. Both expressed the seces- sionist trends in European art where an increasing number of artists strived to find markets for their work (Jensen 1996, 22). At the turn of the century, new independent art associations were multiplying, of- ten hiving off from older ones and declaring that their missions were more liberal or their stylistic programme more coherent and better grounded, which, however, rarely characterised any of them at the same time. On the one hand, they were challenging the routine and often ossified conventions of local scenes and countering the hostile critique of the latest trends in the arts expressed by established ar- tistic communities (Simon 1976, 51; Joyeux-Prunel 2005, 581). Yet, on the other hand, it is important to acknowledge that, by remaining sep- arate, they largely sought to increase their visibility and improve ex- hibition infrastructure to reflect their needs (Paret 2001, 63). Many of these groups employed the tactic of integrating their dis- plays with commemorative monographic sections celebrating the artists considered authoritative among their members. This tool was borrowed from the academic environment, where for years it had served primarily to construct and defend national traditions (Gahtan, Pegazzano 2018, 3). However, it played a major legitimising role for radical expressive lan- guages in the early twentieth century. The organisers of the independent exhibitions often mediated between these two objectives, making way for ambiguities both in contemporary reaction and art historiography. 2 The Sonderbund Model. Between the Marketplace and Secessionist Rhetoric The German art world in the late 1900s and early 1910s resembled a melting pot, with intense activity among continually dividing groups and numerous debates about norms in the arts and their role in de- fending national prestige. Among the most remarkable controversies of the day were the Tschudi Affair and the Bremen Art Dispute that fol- lowed the acquisition of Vincent van Gogh’s Field with Poppies (1889) for the Kunsthalle Bremen by Gustav Pauli in 1911. The latter was equally fuelled by the policies of the Secessions and private galleries, such as Galerie Paul Cassirer,3 and by the polemic that arose around 3 Peter Paret, who was the grandson of Cassirer and has just recently passed away, provided a comprehensive discussion of the climate of fear before the foreign influenc- Quaderni di Venezia Arti 4 257 Taking and Denying, 255-274 Alexandra Timonina Comparing the Cologne Sonderbund of 1912 and the Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition in London Figure 1 Announcement of the International Art Exhibition of the West German Sonderbund. 1912 (Selz 1957, 242) the Sonderbund exhibition in 1910. General conservative opinion as- sumed that there was a conspiracy of Parisian and Berlin art dealers in favour of French art, who had been stringing Germans along and imposing on them overpriced art by foreigners instead of supporting the local schools. Other alleged plotters were progressive museum professionals and critics, who together with the artists blindly follow- ing the French were betraying the national traditions (Selz 1957, 238). The West German Sonderbund was founded in Düsseldorf in 1908 by a group of seven artists who were relatively successful follow- ers of the Impressionist and Neoimpressionist styles (Cestelli Gui- di 1992, 20). Right after the first show, the Sonderbund began being seen as the local equivalent to the Munich and Berlin Secessions. The idea to present French artists next to Germans soon emerged and was realised at the second Sonderbund exhibition in 1910. That show featured artists such as Paul Signac, Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard, Alexej Jawlensky, Wassily Kandinsky, and some pre-Cubist works by Georges Braque. This edition gave particular emphasis on recent theories of colour, its perception, and synthetic approaches in creative practice. The third show maintained this cosmopolitan line by presenting 101 French artists among a total of 147, and further heated things up with a controversial introduction – pointedly enti- tled Rhenish and French Art – written by Richart Reiche, an art his- torian and one of the organisers. es on German art at the dawn of the century in his major study on the Berlin Seces- sion. See Paret 1980, 182-99. Quaderni di Venezia Arti 4 258 Taking and Denying, 255-274 Alexandra Timonina Comparing the Cologne Sonderbund of 1912 and the Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition in London The Cologne show was their fourth exhibition, and it emerged in the context of robust debate over the role of public support for pro- gressive art and openly opposed unfavourable political conditions (Schaefer 2012b, 37).4 The city of Düsseldorf had withdrawn its au- thorisation for the venue because the third edition had provoked too much unrest among the local artistic establishment.