Giacomo Balla - Futurist Artist

The Futurists, as their name implies, wanted to focus on creating a unique and dynamic vision of the future with artists incorporating images of urban landscapes and modern machinery into their work including trains, cars and aeroplanes.  Their work encompassed a variety of artforms including painting, sculpture, architecture, theatre and music with an emphasis on violence, speed and the working classes.  The movement was in effect a celebration of the machine age, with a deliberately provocative tone. 

The Futurists were based primarily in Italy and were lead by the charismatic poet Filippo Marinetti who produced in 1908 the manifesto below;

“We want to fight ferociously against the fanatical, unconscious and snobbish religion of the past, which is nourished by the evil influence of museums.  We rebel against the supine admiration of old canvases, old statues and old objects, and against the enthusiasm for all that is worm-eaten, dirty and corroded by time; we believe that the common contempt for everything young, new and palpitating with life is unjust and criminal.”

Dynamism Of A Dog On A Leash, 1912, oil on canvas, 90 cm 110 cm

The movement was at it’s most active in the years 1909-14 and influenced the thinking of some artists in Britain (hence the Vorticists).  The depiction of movement or dynamism lay at the heart of much Futurist work, and artists developed some novel techniques to express speed and motion including blurring, repetition, and the use of lines of force.  And here, they adopted methods employed by the cubists.  This brings me to the work of Giacomo Balla.   

Balla was born in Turin in 1871 and is thought to have had little formal training in art.  He moved to Rome in his early 20s and gradually came under the influence of Marinetti.  Unlike most Futurists though, Balla was a lyrical painter and seemed less concerned with modern machines or violence.  His 1909 painting “Street Light - A Study of Light” is a dynamic depiction of light.  Futurism’s fascination with the urgency and energy of modern life is evident in this work.

Street Light, 1909, oil on canvas, 175 cm x 115 cm

In 1912 Balla produced “Dynamism Of A Dog On A Leash”, a playful exploration in the depiction of movement.  The influence of cubism is thought to be evident in this painting.  Reference has also been made to the principle of simultaneity in this work, that is; the rendering of motion by simultaneously showing many aspects of a moving object.  

During the First World War, Balla produced a number of abstract works in which he further explored the depiction of speed through the use of planes of colour.  These paintings are the most abstract of any produced by the futurists.  The exploration into the optical possibilities of photo-scientific research carried out by Eadweard Muybridge and others were also thought to be influential in the work of Balla.  This research gave Balla the opportunity to study the true nature of movement.  The French impressionist Edgar Degas was also heavily influenced by Muybridge’s work.

Abstract Speed & Sound, 1914, oil on board, 55 cm x 77 cm

The horrors of the First World War saw many artists turn away from the ideals of Futurism.  In his series “A History Of British Art” the art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon makes reference to the ‘machine gun’ philosophizing of the Vorticists and their joyful celebration of 20th Century technology.  He believes this worshiping of the modern and the streamlined was eventually to be seen as a hollow pose due to WW1.  “How can you celebrate technology when in war it can so effortlessly turn the human face into a bloodied abstract.”

Abstract Speed - The Car Has Passed, 1913, oil on canvas, 50 cm x 65 cm

The Futurist artists Umberto Boccioni and Antonio Sant’Elia both died in military service during WW1 and the influence of Futurism as a force in contemporary art waned after the conflict.  However, Balla remained true to the early principals of Futurism (without the violence) and later in his career returned to more figurative work.  He also designed futurist furniture and “anti-neutral” clothing.  He died in 1958.

References; 

The Art Story

A History of British Art - BBC TV

Brittanica.com

Wikipedia

Art And Design: Bonnard At The NGV

The Bonnard Exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria is a revelation in curation.  The gallery engaged the services of award winning architect and designer India Mahdavi to create a “unique and immersive scenography” for their 2023 Winter Masterpieces exhibition.  In fact, the full title of the exhibition is “Pierre Bonnard: Designed by India Mahdavi.”

(Geoff Harrison)

Iranian born, but now based in Paris, Mahdavi produces immersive environments around the world for exhibitions and restaurants.  In her studio, she endeavors to merge the worlds of architecture, interior design, furniture design, fashion and exhibition design.  Initially, Mahdavi wanted to be a film maker, but the opportunities in Paris for women were very limited so she decided to study architecture instead.  She then went to New York and took classes in product design, graphic design and furniture design which introduced her to something “more tactile, more emotional.”

(Peta Tranquille)

Her work is closely aligned with the film industry.  “Many of the environments I create are very cinematic….they are saturated with life…”  She explains her objectives thus, “In general, I think that your environment has an impact on your mood, right?  I like to bring a sense of joy and happiness to whatever I do, because it puts you in a good mood.  So really, that’s my approach, in general.” 

Mahdavi’s “scenography” certainly succeeded with the current exhibition as I have never been able to entirely understand Bonnard as an artist, yet I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  As is often the case when I struggle to appreciate an artist, I turn to that excellent critic, Robert Rosenblum.  By the 1880’s, some artists were looking for more in their art practice than merely recording the landscape as an objective.  The impressionists were becoming passe for many artists who wanted to explore the psychology behind a scene, that is; what can be seen behind closed as well as open eyes.  They wanted to evoke nuanced and nameless emotions in their art using a wide variety of techniques - flat bold colour with clear outlines in some cases (Gauguin for instance), or hazy darkness in others.

Bonnard, Twilight (The Crocket Party), 1892, 130 x 162 cm (Pubhist)

Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard have been dubbed the Intimistes for their depictions of domestic scenes infused with a “mysterious, elusive sensibility.”  In this exhibition you can see how Bonnard’s technique evolved over time.  His early scenes are viewed through a tapestry of patterns and textures which blend in with the physical elements of the scene.  Later in his career, Bonnard seems to have abandoned this technique entirely.

Bonnard, Man And Woman 1900, 115 x 72.5 cm (Wikimedia Commons)

One striking aspect of this exhibition is how the artists appear to break all the rules of composition, yet come up with paintings that still work.  A classic example is Bonnard’s “Man And Woman” from 1900, in which a screen divides our view and perhaps sets up a duality of male and female.  It gives a charge to a scene that might otherwise be regarded as one of quiet domesticity.

Vallotton, Dinner By Lamplight, 1899, 57 x 90 cm (Wikiart)

But it’s the ‘support acts’ of this exhibition that add extra enjoyment, especially the paintings of Felix Vallotton - two in particular which appear in a catalogue of the Musee d’Orsay that I have always wanted to see first hand.  One is “Dinner By Lamplight” from 1899 in which we see the menacing silhouette of the artist himself in the foreground and his step-daughter in the distance.  Apparently, Vallotton was a master wood engraver, hence the strong colours and outlines.  Rosenblum refers to the “Halloween-like spookiness” of the scene.

Vallotton, Poker 1902, 52.5 x 67.5 cm (Paintings In The Musee D'Orsay)

The other painting is “Poker” from 1902.  A large empty table dominates the scene and suggests that dinner is over and a card game is the aftermath.  There is a theatrical element to this scene which is illuminated by the same intense, even eerie lamplight. 

“Pierre Bonnard: Designed by India Mahdavi” is on at NGV International and runs until 8th October. 

References;

NGV Magazine

“Paintings Of The Musee D’Orsay - Robert Roseblum 

Hello, my name is Geoff. You may be interested to know that I’m a fulltime artist these days and regularly exhibit my work in Victoria, but particularly in Melbourne. You may wish to check out my work using the following link; https://geoffharrisonarts.com

Paris - The Luminous Years

Shortly before losing its arts channel to Foxtel Arts, SBS screened one of the best arts documentaries I’ve even seen.  “Paris - the Luminous Years” is an American PBS production focusing on the years 1905-1930, “when for an incandescent moment Paris was a mecca, a magnetic centre of a new world of the arts, a laboratory of experiment and innovation.  It attracted an international avant-garde and became part of the making of the modern”.

“If you succeeded in Paris, all doors were open to you” - Joan Miro.

(Perry Miller Adato)

All the arts are covered in this two-parter from 2010, performing and visual as well as literature.  Suddenly the arts of the past, including impressionism seemed obsolete.  

Origins

The so-called rebels of the arts were drawn to Mont Marte which was still semi rural in those days, high on a hillside and thus cut off from the rest of Paris. Artists crossed paths regularly, exchanging gossip whilst their favourite meeting places were just down the hill - the Lapin Agile and the Moulin Rouge.  

(Wikimedia Commons)

They had their predecessors at Mont Marte of course, Van Gogh and Gauguin among them.  

Major retrospectives of Gauguin in 1903 and Cezanne in 1907 in Paris had a considerable impact on artists of the period.  Gauguin is considered the father of Fauvism, Cezanne the father of cubism.  When Henri Matisse exhibited his ‘Woman With A Hat’ at the 1905 Salon d’Automne it was ridiculed by the public.  Later, Gertrude Stein who was a collector of modern art, bought it.

Picasso's studio on the Rue Ravignan, (Wikipedia)

The Cafe

Pablo Picasso’s first studio was on the Rue Ravignan in Mont Marte from 1904-1910 where he shared lodgings with other artists and poets.  Being short of cash, they appreciated the cheap rents and camaraderie.  Picasso believes he really found himself as an artist during this period.  Many artist studios and apartments of that era had no gas, no electricity and thus were freezing in winter.  The cafe offered warmth, a cheap meal, a toilet, and an opportunity to sketch, write, plan exhibitions and gossip.  Writers could find publishers and vice-versa.

Cafe Dome, Montparnasse (Wikipedia)

Artists and Poets

The “Picasso Gang” was formed in 1905 which included the poets Guillaume Apollinaire and Andre Salmon as charter members.  With the exception of Georges Braque, poets were Picasso’s closest friends.  Painters tend to have trouble explaining themselves and thus poets were useful in putting into words the artists’ objectives.  Using his connections as an impresario and skill as a writer, Apollinaire was always willing to defend what was new and exciting in the arts.  Apollinaire’s poetry acted as a clarion call to all avant-garde artists of that era.

La Ruche

Often referred to as the bee-hive, a communal space of over 70 studios near the slaughter house in Montparnasse occupied by Leger, Modigliani, Diego Rivera and others including painters and sculptors from Russia.  In those studios lived the artistic Bohemia of every land, according to Marc Chagall.  Many of the artists who practised at La Ruche had come from poor villages in Eastern Europe and beyond so poverty was not an issue for them.  The artists of La Ruche didn’t identify with any “isms” of the era, they had no manifesto, instead they developed their own individual styles which were transformed by the experiences there.

La Ruche, Montparnasse (Pinterest)

Collaborations and Falling Outs

The close collaboration between Picasso and Georges Braque is covered.  Braque once described the two of them as being like mountain climbers clinging to the same rope together.  At one point, their work was almost indistinguishable.  Then came WW1, Braque enlisted but Picasso didn’t, and that was the end of their friendship.  Later Braque took exception to Picasso describing him as his ex-wife.

And then there was the falling out between the writers Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway.  For some years each had been supportive of the others work in Paris, until Hemingway asked her to write a favourable review of a new series of his short stories in 1925.  She was less than impressed and said so.  Hemingway took exception to this and Stein responded “when a man writes continually about sex and death you can be assured that he is impotent, both as a man and a writer”. Ouch! 

Ballet Ruse

The Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev brought his Ballet Ruse to Paris in 1909.  With Igor Stravinsky’s scores, they reinvented the ballet.  Diaghilev brought together dancers, writers, composers, musicians, choreographers and artists (including Picasso who designed some of the sets for his productions) and is considered one of the most influential figures in the art world at the time. 

World War One - the Aftermath

The war tended to alienate those artists who enlisted from those who didn’t.  It’s argued that the war gave the conservative right in French society the opportunity to rail against avant-garde art by portraying it as German.  Avant-garde artists grew concerned that anything they produced that couldn’t be readily understood might be interpreted as German inspired.  The paint on their cubist works had barely dried before they began churning out conservative portraits.  A neo-classical movement had arisen - lead by Picasso.  To make matters worse for them, the main dealer in cubist works, Daniel H. Kahnweiler (a German) was forced into exile.  Apollinaire served in the war and was badly injured before dying of the Spanish Flu two days before the armistice was signed in 1918.

Paintings by Robert Delaunay from 1912 (left) & 1914 (Wikimedia Commons)

Among the more significant art movements that arose in the early 1920’s was Dada, a protest movement born out of the horror of the First World War.  It was subversive and provocative and it eventually evolved into Surrealism.  The contribution of Marcel Duchamp is discussed with his ‘readymades’ leading to a never ending argument about what constitutes art. 

The Americans

Many American writers who had served in Europe during the war returned to Paris in the early 1920’s and were inspired by the freedom, the mood for experimentation and the art of Picasso (back to his cubist phase again) and others.  This was in marked contrast to the repression, censorship and prohibition that constituted life back in the States - all the things they had fought against in Europe.  So it was little wonder that they couldn’t get back to Paris quickly enough.  And life was so cheap, you almost didn’t have to hold down a job to survive.

American women artists and writers found particular freedom in Paris compared to life in the States where they were expected to marry young and raise families.  American jazz represented modernity to the French and it had a major influence on French composers and artists.

Matisse, Woman With A Hat, 1905 (Wikipedia)

Serge Diaghilev died in August 1929 and the Ballet Ruse would close shortly after.  Two months later came the Wall Street crash, the effects of which would reverberate across Europe.  It would devastate the avant-garde in Paris and most expatriot American artists would return home.  Eventually Braque and Picasso would reconcile - to a point. 

This documentary includes interviews with academics, art historians and contains archival footage of interviews with Joan Miro, Marc Chagall, Jean Cocteau, D. H. Kahnweiler and many others. If there is a criticism I could level against this series, it’s that there is no mention of the artists who didn’t make it and what became of them.  Perhaps there is a tendency to romanticize the era to some degree.

Hello, my name is Geoff. You may be interested to know that I’m a fulltime artist these days and regularly exhibit my work in Victoria, but particularly in Melbourne. You may wish to check out my work using the following link; https://geoffharrisonarts.com

Jozef Israels - Painter Of Hardship

It’s sometimes difficult to avoid indulging in ‘accolade overdrive’ when discussing the significance of certain artists from the past.  Artist Jozef Israels (1824 - 1911) has been described as the ‘Dutch Millet’ who, is his depiction of the depths of human feeling, is regarded as a worthy successor to Rembrandt and an inspiration to Vincent Van Gogh.   He is also regarded as the most significant Dutch artist of the 19th Century. 

Israels had an extensive and academic arts education which included studying in Paris, and in his early career was a history painter depicting scenes of national heroes that were poorly received due to their stiffness and theatricality.  But he began to take an interest in the work of social realists such as Jean Francois Millet of the Barbazon School and Gustave Dore.

Children Of The Sea, oil on canvas 1872

Jenny Reynaerts, senior curator of 18th and 19th century painting at the Rijksmuseum  has some interesting commentary on one of Israels’ most famous paintings “Children Of The Sea” from 1872.  She tells us that at an early stage of his career, Israels fell ill with rheumatism  and was advised by his doctors in 1855 to move to the coastal town of Zandvoort to improve his health.   

He immediately began taking an interest in his surroundings and, in particular, the lives of the local fishing community.  He decided this would become one of the main subjects of his future work.  The poor clothing suggests that these children are probably members of a fishing family and the composition is thought to be a portent of the lives that lay ahead of them.  The boy has a little girl on his shoulders whilst another girl hangs on to his clothing.  This suggests that one day the boy will become a fisherman, carrying the weight of the family, and the girls will be waiting on the coast for his return.

Awaiting The Fishermen's Return After A Storm,  51 x 64 cm

Israels often painted scenes of women waiting on the shore for the return of the fishermen after a storm, hoping they have survived and have a sufficient catch to take to market.  Thus, there is a level of anxiety in these scenes.  Reynaerts argues that “Children Of The Sea” can provide an incentive to look around our local area to find inspiration for art. 

Israels became a leading member of The Hague School, named after a coastal city in the Netherlands where a group of Dutch artists lived and worked roughly between 1860 and 1890.  The school reacted against traditional academic painting, preferring to present realistic images of rural everyday life and poignant scenes of the simple, often lonely lives of peasants.  The artists generally used a sombre, muted palette that saw them dubbed The Gray School.

When One Grows Old, 143 x 89 cm

In his discussion of Israels’ painting “When One Grows Old”, critic Robert Rosenblum refers to the woman’s gnarled hands, the crude wooden chair that evokes a life of hardship and the chill of winter invoking her imminent passing. And yet Rosenblum also refers to the “softened haze of sentimentality” that exists in Israels’ work that obscures the harsh truths of his themes.  He is drawing a comparison with the tough crudity of Van Gogh’s early depictions of peasant life. I’m not sure I agree with this assessment.  

Alone In The World, 38 x 55 cm, c.1878

His depictions of village life earned Israels international fame and he exhibited in Paris and London as well as Holland.  He taught numerous pupils including his son Isaac.  The Venice Biennale honoured Israels with a retrospective exhibition following his death in 1911.

References, the web;

The Art Story

The Rijksmuseum

                      Books;

Art of the Nineteenth Century: Painting and Sculpture by Robert Rosenblum & H. W. Janson

Goya - A Journey Into Darkness

It all seemed to be going swimmingly for Francisco Goya – until his nervous breakdown in 1792.  After that, he is credited with tearing up the rule book and reinventing what art can and should do and what it means to be human. 

He had been court painter to the Spanish royal family, who admired the rococo tapestries he had designed for the royal court in Madrid.  So they invited Goya to paint their portraits, and in the great tradition of telling it like it is, he did just that.  The result was a display of royal mockery never seen before in the history of art.  And yet, somehow he got away with it.  Flattery was not to be found on Goya’s CV.

The Parasol, a tapestry design painted by Goya, c1777

But the evil and the stupidity he saw in the world around him soon came to the surface in his art.  The catalyst for this was the nervous breakdown and physical illness that he suffered in the early 1790’s.  The exact nature of Goya’s illness has never been properly diagnosed but it left him functionally deaf and in fear of his own sanity.  Suddenly the light has gone out in his art and darkness has crept in as he explored the depths of his own imagination.

An example is “St Francis Borgia Attending a Dying Impenitent” of 1795.  From the saint's crucifix spurt drops of blood that land on the sinner's torso.  This painting is thought to represent Goya’s growing disillusionment with Christianity and its inability to explain the inhumanity in the world.

St Francis Borgia Attending a Dying Penitent, 1795, oil on canvas

In 1794, Goya painted the “Casa De Locos (The Madhouse)”, a stone gaol where all manner of appalling acts are being witnessed.  It is thought that these works represented, at least in part, all of Goya’s disappointments with the world around him.

Casa De Locos (The Madhouse). 1794, oil on panel

Around 1794, Goya painted “Yard With Lunatics”.  “The work stands as a horrifying and imaginary vision of loneliness, fear and social alienation, a departure from the rather more superficial treatment of mental illness in the works of earlier artists such as Hogarth.” Wikipedia

From commissioned portraitist, Goya had made the remarkable transformation into an artist exploring his own bleak view of the world. He claimed the painting is based on something he witnessed in Zaragoza where a yard was filled with lunatics, and two of them were fighting completely naked while their warder beats them.

Yard With Lunatics, 1794, oil on tinplate

In his book “Goya”, written shortly after his near death experience on a highway near Broome, Western Australia, author Robert Hughes discusses the profound isolation that engulfed Goya as a result of his deafness.  “Any trauma makes you think of worse trauma.  It sets the mind worrying and fantasizing about what else might be in store, and whether you can bear it if it comes.”  And with Goya’s illness not being properly diagnosed, he had no idea if the illness was temporary or permanent and what impact it would have on his career.  And all this was exacerbated by his increasing deafness.

Self Portrait, c.1815, oil on canvas

Hughes tells us that the eighteenth century was the heyday of the prison as isolator, long before the concept of prison as a reformatory was to creep into minds of European governments.  Whilst madhouses were even worse because no one had any idea of how to treat the mad, so they were simply dumping grounds for the psychotic, the deranged and the wayward.  No doubt, this fed into Goya’s exploration of the dark side of human existence.

What was to follow of course, was his famous Caprichos, his disasters of war series (inspired by Napoleon’s invasion of Spain) and the black paintings of his final years.  Interestingly, Spain went into a coma (artistically speaking) for over 50 years following Goya’s death in 1828.  Perhaps his successors were intimidated by the sheer power and darkness of his vision.

References;

Rococo  -  BBC TV

Something Wicked This Way Comes -  The Independent

Wikipedia

Emma Minnie Boyd

As author Brenda Niall tells the story in her 2002 book “The Boyds”, Australia’s most famous artistic dynasty began with four men; Victoria’s first Chief Justice, a convict turned successful brewer, a military officer and a doctor/squatter. Initially, reading this book brought back memories of Tolstoy’s War and Peace in that the reader is confronted with an enormous family tree that runs to three pages.

The scale of that tree can be attributed to the simple fact that most of them bred like rabbits.  What is remarkable is the proliferation of artistic offspring produced by these various alliances; painters, potters, sculptors, writers and architects.

For this blog, I am focusing on the career of Emma Minnie Boyd (1858-1936) arguably the first significant artist of the dynasty.

Minnie Boyd; Interior With Figures - The Grange, 1875, watercolour

With the a’Beckett fortune behind her (William a’Beckett was Victoria’s first Chief Justice), Emma Minnie lived a privileged existence both in Victoria and the UK.  She spent six years at the Gallery School in Melbourne, as well as private lessons with none other than Louis Buvelot – the finest landscape painter of his generation.  Her early interior scenes are my favourites, they depict scenes at the Boyd’s Tudor style mansion “Glenfern” in East St Kilda (which still exists) and “The Grange” at Harkaway (which doesn’t).  They are small in scale but very intricate.

Minnie Boyd; Corner Of A Drawing Room, 1887, oil on canvas

Minnie and Arthur Merric Boyd, were contemporaries of the Heidelberg school artists; Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Charles Conder etc. but being married, they remained on the fringes of that movement.  Life in the male dominated artists’ camps of the late 1880’s was not a proposition for a lady and besides, the others were all single.  She was fortunate to have a painter-husband who encouraged her in her career.

The Boyds moved to the UK in 1890 and their work was shown at the Royal Academy.  They lived in relative comfort, but the poverty of rural England began to disturb Minnie.  The industrial revolution had effectively destroyed cottage industries and Minnie was encouraged by a local vicar to take part in village life and charitable work.  Her painting “To The Workhouse” is a reflection of these times.  But they also toured Europe, largely on the proceeds of Emma a’Beckett – Minnie’s mother.  They moved back to Victoria in 1894.

Minnie Boyd; To The Workhouse, 1891, oil on canvas

Niall writes that their experiences in Europe didn’t change the Boyd’s greatly as artists, although being exposed to rural poverty awoke a social conscience in Minnie and she became deeply religious.  Back in Melbourne, Minnie and Arthur Merric attempted to live a more independent existence but were still heavily reliant on Emma’s “bounty”.

In 1902, the Boyd’s held a joint exhibition in the ballroom of Como House which was regarded as an enviable coup.  The exhibition, which was organised by wealthy patron Caroline Armytage was considered a commercial success.

Arthur Merric Boyd; Pastoral, 1899, watercolour

Yet it appears that their status as artists was hard to define.  Their perceived privileged background was an uneasy fit with the (romanticised) bohemian image of the serious artist.  And these artists may have envied their connections.  Yet among the wealthy upper class of Melbourne they were both insiders and outsiders.  There appeared to be a slight vein of eccentricity that ran through the Boyd Dynasty and certainly Minnie and Arthur Merric felt awkward about using friendships for money.  Yet the more they needed to sell their work the harder it became.  Eventually, Minnie began teaching.

Minnie Boyd; Harkaway, 1879, watercolour

Looking at Minnie’s early work, I’m left wondering why she didn’t become a more prominent artist, as she had been exhibiting her work from the age of fifteen.  Being a woman in a male dominated profession only provides part of the answer.  Once again, the family tree provides the other – she had five children and was a devoted mother.  Still, she was one of those rare artists who was able to combine an artistic career with raising a large family.  She was equally adept at watercolours and oils and was quite versatile in her output.

Just like her mother before her, Minnie became the centre of Boyd family life.  She gave religious sermons to her children, although it was not of the ‘fire and brimstone’ kind.  One of her sons (Martin) believes that the literal earnestness with which Minnie accepted her religion was the result of her need for some unalterable centre of stability.

After being frail for some years, Minnie died in 1936 at the age of 78.  She had been exhibiting landscapes at the Victorian Artist’s Society until seven years earlier.

References;

The Boyds, Brenda Niall, Melbourne University Press, 2002

Wikipedia

Johan Christian Dahl - Painter of Serenity

If I had to pick my all time favourite night time scene, it would be “View Of Dresden By Moonlight” painted by Johan Christian Dahl in 1839.  The towers reaching majestically towards the heavens, the flares on the riverbank, the candlelit rooms in the distance and the sheen of moonlight on the water.  (A very close second would be JMW Turner’s amazing watercolour “Alnwick Castle”, painted 10 years earlier.)

View of Dresden By Moonlight, 1839, 78 cm x 130 cm

You can see why he is considered the first great Norwegian romantic painter.  In his series ‘Art Of Scandinavia’, art historian Andrew Graham Dixon paints a bleak picture of life in Norway in the years leading up to the arrival of Dahl on the artistic landscape.  Norway was essentially a backward country of farmers and fisherman, cobblers and carpenters, there were no universities, art schools or art galleries so seeking an artistic career must have seemed a pipedream.  Or an irrelevance.

But that didn’t deter Dahl who was the son of a poor west coast fisherman.  His early paintings convinced a group of wealthy local merchants to sponsor his studies in Denmark and Germany, and he would spend most of his life abroad.  Yet he would consistently return to his native Norway for inspiration.

Winter At The Sognefjord, 1827, 75 cm x 61 cm

Sometimes he depicted harsh winter scenes, in other paintings the sun would be shining, but it was always a pale watery sun struggling to break through the clouds.  Graham-Dixon argues that Dahl saw the undeveloped landscape as a virtue, a symbol of Norway’s innocence. 

View from Stalheim, 1842, 190 cm x 246 cm

In his monumental “View From Stalheim”, Dahl seems to pull out all stops to produce a grand patriotic statement, perhaps presenting the essence of what it meant to be Norwegian at a time of rampant industrialization in other parts of Europe.

Dahl spent a large part of his life in Germany, settling in Dresden around 1820.  He befriended the famous German romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich and they became very close and were godfathers to each other’s children.  They painted and exhibited together and from 1824, even shared the same house with their respective families.

View From Lyshornet, 1836, 41 cm x 51 cm

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer asked in 1840 “Why has looking at the moon become so beneficiary, so soothing and so sublime?  Because the moon remains purely an object for contemplation, not of the will. […] Furthermore, the moon is sublime, and moves us sublimely because it stays aloof from all our earthly activities, it sees all, yet takes no part in it…”

There is serenity and peace in Dahl’s painting of moonlit Dresden, a suggestion of nature and people coexisting harmoniously.  We see the Augustus Bridge spanning the Elbe River and the Baroque Church of Our Lady in the middle distance, and to the right the Old Town (Altstadt) – the historic town centre.  What could have been a meditation on loneliness and alienation has perhaps become a comforting scene, a reassurance that we are not alone.

References;

Art Of Scandinavia, presented by Andrew Graham-Dixon BBC 4 (2016)

artschaft.com – Johan Christian Dahl (2018)

Kathe Kollwitz - Artist With A Social Conscience

In her 77th year, Kathe Kollwitz (1867 – 1945) stated in her diary that it was her deepest desire to no longer live.  She believed that she was old enough to have the right to complete rest.  One of her friends claimed that she had a dialogue with death for most of her life. 

Woman With A Dead Child, 1903, etching dry point

She was the fifth child of seven.  She was a shy and anxious child and the deaths of three of her siblings, one prior to Käthe's own birth, exposed her at an early age to the quiet, eternal suffering of parental grief. Her mother’s stoicism, her concealed "deep sorrow" and emotional strength in the face of such loss had a powerful effect on Kathe and she would later incorporate these childhood observations into her own aesthetic depictions of mourning. 

Unemployment, 1909 etching and aquatint

In 1891 she married Karl Kollwitz who was trained as a doctor with a social conscience, they moved into their home in a disadvantaged area of Berlin where they were to remain for the next 50 years. Kathe’s work has to be seen against the rapid industrialization that occurred in late 19th and early 20th century Germany and the toll it was taking on the working class.  In 50 years Berlin’s population had swelled from 400,000 to 2 million.  The city had trouble coping and for many poverty became a way of life in a city containing slum tenements, housing thousands of textile workers who had flooded into the city in search of work.

The quiet, hard working life they led was undoubtedly good for her art.  Early in her career she was influenced by the 1892 play The Weavers by Gerhart Hauptmann, which portrayed a group of Salesian weavers who staged an uprising in the 1840’s over concerns about the industrial revolution.

Kathe began a series of prints based on the weavers.  Shortly after, her etchings won a gold medal at an academy show, but Kaiser Wilhelm II vetoed the award, describing her work as “gutter art” and a sin against the German people.  State approved art featured images of German power, but her career was established.  Another influence was the peasant’s war of the early 16th century.  She claimed that all her work was the distillation of her life and she acknowledges that she is a socialist artist.  This was due to the influences of her brother, father and literature of the period, but the real motive for choosing as a subject for her art the life of the workers “was that such subjects gave me in a simple and unqualified way what I considered to be beautiful.”

The Volunteers, 1923 woodcut

She got involved with the difficulties and challenges of proletarian life due to the women who came to her husband for help, unsolved problems of prostitution and unemployment grieved her and she determined to “keep on” with her studies of the working class.

She lost her youngest son Peter in World War 1, “everywhere beneath the surface are tears and bleeding wounds and yet the war goes on and follows other laws”. In her youth she wanted to mount the barricades of revolution, but in the wake of WW1 she wrote “I am and sick and tired of all the hatred in the world, I long for a socialism that lets men live free from murdering, from lying, from destroying and disfiguring, from all the devil’s work that the world has seen enough of.”

The Mothers, 1923 woodcut

During the years 1912 to 1920, Kollwitz produced very little finished work, labouring under depression she made many etchings but none were completed.  Having “come to a clear sense of her own past” she began to investigate the possibilities of sculpture and finally gave etching up.

Then she wanted to explore the possibilities of line work so she switched to woodcuts.  “It’s like a photographic plate that lies in the developer, the picture gradually becomes recognisable and emerges more and more from the mist.  Simplicity in feeling but expressing the totality of grief”, the war was still impacting on her art.

Memorial For Karl Liebknecht, 1919 a co-founder of the Marxist anti war Spartacus League who was executed in 1919 - woodcut

“It is my duty to voice the sufferings of man.  I want my art to have a purpose beyond itself and to wield influence.  Strength is what I need, it’s the one thing I need that seems worthy of succeeding Peter.  Strength to take life as it is and unbroken by life and without complaining and much weeping to do one’s work powerfully.”

For 14 years Kollwitz was a member of the Berlin Academy of the Arts, but was forced to resign following Adolf Hitler’s election victory in 1933 - her left leaning politics saw to that.  She gave consideration to returning to an old plan of producing a series of prints that focussed on the theme of death.  “I thought that now that I am really old, I might be able to handle this theme that would allow me to plumb the depths.  But that is not the case, at the very time when death becomes visible behind everything it disrupts the imaginative process”.   Images of the protective mother began to appear in her work during World War 2 and her home was destroyed during the bombing of Berlin.

The Grieving Parents, 1932 - a memorial to her son Peter, granite

At the end of her life she was hopeful that “other comrades can carry the banner forward”.   She died just a few weeks prior to war’s end. 

Käthe Kollwitz - Portrait of the German artist of expressionism,  Arts Council of Great Britain production 1981.

Art Of Germany – BBCTV  2010

The Art Story