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Five Centuries of German Art Author(s): Walter Friedlaender Source: Parnassus, Vol. 8, No. 6 (Nov., 1936), pp. 9-11+22-23Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/771276Accessed: 18-04-2015 15:08 UTC

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FIVE CENTURIES OF GERMAN ART BY WALTER FRIEDLAENDER

New York University

The exhibition of German art at the Pennsylvania Mu- seum, held under the auspices of the Oberlaender Trust and the Carl Schurz Foundation, is a very serious enter- prise designed to present a general survey of the develop- ment of German painting and drawing from the fifteenth through the nineteenth century. To my knowledge, no such task has been undertaken outside of Germany. The big national spring exhibitions in Burlington House in London in the last years included Italian, French and English, but, up to now, there has been no German show. Therefore this present exhibition (to be shown later on in Cleveland, Chicago, Brooklyn, Boston, and Pitts- burgh) is quite a novelty. Most of the paintings are unknown to the American public. And even less known is the idea of a continuity of German art through the centuries.

It is greatly to be regretted that Mrs. Helen Appleton Read's endeavor to assemble this exhibit of German Mas- terworks did not completely succeed, because of the elim- ination of twenty-six pieces, a last moment's necessity, before the opening. As these eliminated works formed to a large extent the base on which the entire survey was built, the aim of the show-to demonstrate the unity of German art-is somewhat weakened. Many of the great and famous works, on which the pride of German painting rests, that is to say, the paintings of the XIV and XV Centuries are missing: the famous Madonna with the Beanblossoms from Cologne, comparable in its deli- cacy to a Sienese panel; the child-like, yet dignified Madonna im Rosenhaag by Stephen Lochner, and the amusing and elegant Garden of Paradise (School of Upper- Rhine); Albrecht Diirer's portrait of Elizabeth Tuchner; the two charming Altdorfers from Berlin, the Nativity and Family of a Satyr (the exhibited landscape by Alt- dorfer is not an adequate substitution). Instead of these pictures and many more, which had been obtained only by great effort from the German museums, we have to be satisfied with their reproduction in the very fine catalogue of the present exhibition.

However, the exhibited collection of early German painting is still remarkable, although more in single examples than in its entirety. Outstanding is the small painting from the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, of St. Christ- opher in the Waves, with flying coat and the Christ-child on his shoulders, attributed to, and certainly very close to Conrad Witz. The Munich Pinakothek has sent a large Coronation by the great Tyrolian master Michael Pacher, which recalls the manner of Vivarini. The West- phalian school is represented by a picture of St. Luke painting the Virgin. Is the Madonna with the Christ- child, stepping on a serpent, really a Schongauer? The Madonna with Two Saints from Darmstadt, by the Master of the Bartholomew Altar, is a very fine picture, but not very characteristic of the otherwise strikingly manner- istic painter. The naivete of Bernard Strigel is well ex- pressed in the pictures from Stuttgart and Munich, particularly in the fragment Birth of the Virgin, and the quite impressive Sleeping Warrior, the latter derived from a Diirer figure. Very lovely in its beautiful colours is Baldung Grien's Rest on the Flight to Egypt, from the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg. Its entire imagery reminds one of the young Cranach and the school of the Danube. By Cranach himself we see the very nice little picture, provided with a moralising inscription, representing Venus

^upferstlcbkabttnett, erltit

FATHERLY ADVICE THE MASTER OF THE HOUSEBOOK

A XV century drawing in the German Exhibition of the Oberlaender Trust and the Carl Schurz Foundation

and Amor stung by bees, the strange composition of Melancholia from a private collection, and the excellent Portrait of a Man, from Dresden.

In contrast to the pictures, the collection of drawings is almost complete: only three have been removed. There- fore we have here a splendid show, as was intended, which we can enjoy. It is for the graphic arts, and not for their painting that Germans in the XIV and XV Cen- turies were famous everywhere. In a Schongauer Madonna from Berlin, we can enjoy a line as pure and rich as in his masterpiece the Madonna im Rosenhaag in St. Martins in Colmar. A contrast to the Schongauer as well to the beautiful neat drawing of Hans Holbein's (the Elder) Nativity is a wittily and loosely drawn sketch Fatherly Advice by a completely different temperament, the Master of the Housebook, one of the amusing German painters, a forerunner of Diirer, and far too little known. Six drawings by Diirer himself are on exhibition: the charming Madonna Selbdritt from Nuremberg, dated 1514, the vig- orous Portrait of a Young Man, dated 1515 from Berlin, the study of a Forest with two Hermits, a preparatory

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study for a woodcut, and so on. Among the four Altdor- fer drawings, the one of St. Chris-topher is outstandingly fine. Hans Baldung Grien, more amusing as a draughtsman than as a painter is, of course, not equal to Matthias Nithard, famous under the name of Griinewald. Nat- urally it was not possible to bring over the great Isen- heimer Altar from Colmar or one of his other great works, but the admirable head of a Lamenting Angel, from Berlin, gives a full impression of the pictorial and at the same time emotional qualities of the master from Aschaffen- burg. The clear and fine drawings by Hans Holbein, and a nice landscape by Wolf Huber, the master of the school of the Danube should be mentioned.

It is amazing how many different types, currents, and individuals are found in this glorious period: a period not so rich as the Quattrocento or Cinquecento in Italy, often more provincial, more craftsmanlike and simple, but a period which impressed even the spoiled followers of the High Renaissance of Florence and Rome, not only because of its great personalities but also through the peculiar spirit which they disdainfully called "gothic."

The question is: can these various tendencies and in- dividualities of early German painting be reduced to one common denominator? Can one find a comprehensive formula which will fit all these divergent currents, and which will express precisely the "German" factor in the painting of the XIV and XV centuries, and differentiate it from everything not German? Of course the German character is not so much to be contrasted with that of the Flemish or French primitives, because here it is only a question of nuances and direct or indirect influences. For example the Lukas Madonna of the Westphalian master in the present exhibit is influenced obviously by the circle of van Eyck, and the Konrad Witz by the Bur- gundian school. Very much greater and more striking is the contrast of northern art to Italian. This is an age- old problem.

The northern man's longing for the South grew through this consciousness of contrast, a contrast in social and climatic respects as well as in the way of thinking and feeling; but also, although in a lesser degree, an interest for the North existed in the South. As a result we have a highly fertile mutual relation. But how should we express in words this contrast? Formally it is evident and has been analyzed. The forms employed in German art constitute a language which is as different from the one employed in Italian art as the spoken German language is different in word and pronunciation from the spoken Italian language. The large broken drapery of Conrad Witz, the angular lines of the Housebook Master or of Hans Holbein the Elder, or even of Diirer, are not to be found in the Italian language of forms. Or if they are found we will be inclined to conclude that they are a residuum of gothic-nordic elements, analogies or loans, such as occur frequently in any language. To establish a science of comparative forms is not difficult, but to erect a science of comparative significance is, just as in linguistic studies, a difficult and hazardous task. The significance behind the difference of forms and of the spiritual structure on which it is based, will have to be clearly defined, and not just vaguely alluded to. The "semasiology", using a technical philological term, that is to say the science of the significance of forms and the modification of their meaning, is still little developed. Because no reliable basis exists, no real science of the fundamentals on which the various people have built their language of forms, vague and emotional generalisation has taken root. Obviously, the tendency to identify the art, and thereby the character, of various peoples by slogans,

has always existed. Thus the French and their art were stamped as essentially "rational", the Italians and their art as mainly "formal", and the Germans and their art (as in the catalogue) as "irrational mystic, romantic".

Such general characterisations of people, as reflected in their art have certainly their justification, as they touch intuitively many specific features. They are also interesting historically, as they frequently go back to definite sources whose effect is continued in certain circles up to today. The evaluation of German art as essentially and specifically "subjective, irrational, cosmic, diffuse musi- cal" and so on, can be traced back to the period in which it was rediscovered. This was the period of Romanticism, around 1800, the time of national reawakening and retro- spective feeling. Thus the German primitives were evalu- ated in genuinely romantic fashion. This era is represented in the present show by the pictures of Caspar David Friedrich, Carus and Runge. From this time date the first collections of early German pictures. At this time the romantic poets and writers Wackenroder, Tieck, Schlegel, partly under the influence of Schelling's philosophy, became enthusiastic admirers of the Cologne school of painting and of Diirer. But their enthusiasm was of the same type as that for the young Raphael, that is, always emphasizing the primitive psychic, cosmic, and the non- formal. Thus the stark, healthy figure of Diirer was trans- formed in a novel by Tieck into a sentimental, pietistic, dreamy, naive one. This diffuse and very incomplete conception of the essence of German art as dreamy, emo-

Nationalgalerie, Berlin

THE POACHERS WILHELM LEIBL (1844-1900) Fromz the German Exhibition which opened at the Penn-

sylvania Museum and which will travel to several cities

tional, inspired and naive held its validity up to our time even in circles of supposedly objective science, empha- sized to various degrees in various periods of the XIX

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and XX centuries according to the romantic fluctuations. If we try to consider more objectively-as far as this

is possible in art-the events of Early German art as this exhibition presents them, we will certainly find some facts which correspond to this "romantic" conception, especially in the field of landscape painting, which of course is lyrical in itself. Even the taste of the Italian con- temporaries recognized the charm of northern and thus German landscape painting. Raphael in his Loggia simply imitated the landscapes from the background of Diirer's woodcuts. Altdorfer was probably the first who painted a pure landscape. In the pictures of the young Cranach, Wolf Huber, Springinsklee, not to speak of Diirer's water- colors, we find indeed an unsurpassed poetry of landscape. Of course we can use the word "romantic" in the descrip- tion of the fantastic rocks, the branches covered with moss as found in the school of the Danube, and this word will produce a definite idea. But can we not also use the same term for Giorgione's Storm or Dosso Dossi's Circe? Are they not also lyrical and romantic? We have not arrived at a differentiation of the typically German character.

Griinewald, seen from a classical point of view is certainly "irrational" and influenced from definite mystical tendencies. But are the mysticism and irrationalism behind his so unmistakably German language of forms ex- clusively German qualities? Does not the artist's emotional character remind one, distantly perhaps, rather of the Greek and Venetian Spaniard, El Greco, than of Griinewald's compatriot, Hans Holbein.

Let us now speak of Holbein. Is not this absolutely cool and yet grandiose draughtsman closer in his artistic aims to that understanding portrayer of men, Velasquez, than to any of his compatriots? Has he not much more similarity to Clouet in France and Bronzino in Florence, although he is far superior to these contemporary por- traitists in the precision of his lines and his keen perception. Holbein, just as they, allows no place for the un- clear, unreal or fantastic. Thus the romanticists and romantic periods did, I believe, not know what to do with him. Does that mean he is less German than Altdorfer or Griinewald? The same question may be posed for Albrecht Diirer, who always and everywhere has been recognized as the representative master of German draughtsmanship. Also in his case the entire romantic phraseology is of no use. And this is the reason he was so completely misunderstood by the romantics.

Therefore in this exhibit we are unable to find the common "search for a philosophy of life" which is sup- posed to characterize the German artist in contrast to the Latin. For instance the portrait of a man with beret and folded hands (an ecclesiastic?) by Cranach, from Dresden shows the uncompromisingly hard and shrewd features of a man who knows how to fight life. Compare it with a portrait by Pontormo or Parmeg- gianino, and notice how much more real and unromantic the German master is. The categories of "unreal" and so on play a much lesser role in early German painting than was imagined by the romantics and post-romantics, who derived the categories from their own art and philosophy.

It was the power of perception and lack of sentimentality, and not the cosmic, diffuse sentiment, that has raised the art of the XIV and XV century to such great heights. The lyrical-poetical atmosphere of the landscapes added a great charm to the whole of German art but this would have faded away without the healthy basis of reality.

Whenever one spoke of German art, at least outside of Germany, one always understood only the painting of

PORTRAIT OF A MAN LUCAS CRANACH (1472-1553)

In the Exhibition of Germtan art which will be on view at the Cleveland Museum from November 12 to December 13

the XIV and of the first half of the XV century, meaning the various schools in Cologne, on the Middle and Upper Rhine, in Nuremberg, on the Danube, in Lower Saxony and so on, and the names of the great masters, Direr, Holbein, Cranach, etc. It was only the works of these schools or masters that had value for museums or the art market. No attention was paid to later painting. Only the very charming and interesting personality of one artist, Adam Elsheimer of Frankfort, is the exception. His was an unusual talent for small landscape pictures that was completely isolated from the German art of his time. Elsheimer was the friend of the young Rubens in Rome, and it was there Elsheimer died in 1610. He is represented in this exhibit by an early picture Rest on the Flight to Egypt from Berlin, showing the influence of Rotten- hammer and Tintoretto, and a wonderful landscape with a Holy Family. Elsheimer's poetry and imagination make him a worthy follower of Altdorfer.

Even Germany itself for a long time, paid little attention to its own baroque art. This attitude changed with the growth of art history, which is all comprehensive, and with the increasing interest in the splendid baroque architecture of South Germany and Austria. Tak- ing inventory of these often wonderful buildings and their treasures one could not overlook their decoration; and a series of artistic personalities like Januarius Zick, Maul- pertch and others came to light. Their sketches are particularly charming and amusing, and although they are not as brilliant as those of Tiepolo or Piazzetta, they are certainly worthy of this exhibition. Also the portraits by Tischbein and especially by Anton Graff (The Young Man

(Continued on page 22) ELEVEN


FIVE CENTURIES OF GERMAN ART (Continued from page 11)

with the Monocle, in the manner of Gainsborough) are to be mentioned as from this period of Baroque and Rococo. Of course they form no real transition to the art of the XIX century. And here we have to notice the fact that German painting did not keep pace with the architecture or even the sculpture of the Baroque period. It is very strange how the optical art failed them in a time in which German music started its world-career with Bach, Handel, Gliick and Mozart. This was the time in which German philosophy became dominant from Leibniz to Kant and Hegel, a time in which literature began its classical phase with men like Lessing, Schiller and Goethe. It was this period when Italy, France and to some extent England went through a rich and varied phase of painting.

We do not find signs of new life in Germany before the first decade of the XIX century, the era of Classicism and Romanticism and of the rediscovery of early German painting. There are at first, however, no overwhelming forces, which would carry us away. There is no Goya who could represent the Desastros della Guerra with vehe- ment passion, nor a David, who wanted to influence the history of the world with the antique-heroic content of his pictures, nor a Gericault (also politically minded).

The romantic painters of Germany were pious, poetical people, living far removed from actual life. They really wanted to paint the qualities which they ascribed to all of German art, sentiment, soul, the lyric, the mystic, the cosmic. But they did not possess the great power of the early German masters whom they admired and misunderstood so greatly. Their movement, however, is not so isolated as it might appear. There existed not only Nazarener in Germany, but also similar primitive movements in France (as the barbus in David's Atelier) and in England (Flaxman and Blake).

These Nazarener and even painters like C. D. Friedrich and Runge, more or less forgotten by Germany itself, were brought to the surface in 1906 in the so-called Jahrhun- dertaustellung, a survey of the art of the XIX century. The exhibition was arranged by Hugo v. Tschudi and Julius Meier-Graefe, strangely enough, the champions of the French impressionist and therefore not at all favored by academic circles nor the court. The contemporary expres- sionist movement was also a romantic movement. The rediscovered painters of the early XIX century awakened in Germany, particularly in the younger generation a true enthusiasm, especially for C. D. Friedrich and Runge. In- expensive little volumes of reproductions of their works, entitled characteristically enough Der stille Garten (the Quiet Garden) made these artists even more popular. Simultaneously with the predilection for Romanticism, the appreciation of impressionism and realism declined.

The choice of the pictures of the XIX century here exhibited emphasizes the romantic painters. And thus it corresponds with the above mentioned Jahrhundertauzstel- lung. Not that the realistic ones are simply neglected: we find the sober, but striking and witty portrait studies of the Berlin painter Franz Kriiger, the amusing painter of fes- tivals and parades. In subject matter as well by temperament he was a forerunner of Adolf Menzel who was a keen draughtsman and observer. Several brilliant studies illus- trate his work in the exhibition. Only his early pictures of the 'forties, surprisingly impressionistically-realistic are not sufficiently shown.

It is of great merit that for once works are shown which have a spiritual significance for a large circle of people.

Neu,house Galleries CHRISTOPHER HUGHES GILBERT STUART Recently acquired by the Rhode Island School of Design Romantic tendencies are ever near the heart of all people, not alone German, even as an undercurrent in impressionistic or realistic periods. If we have, in addition, the quality and originality of composition-as we have in C. D. Friedrichs-this enthusiasm is understandable, although it is based on sentimentality. It is an experiment to see whether a foreign audience without national, sentimental presuppositions, will be moved by such pictures as the Klosterruine (and similar works, such as a funeral of a monk in torch-light), or such pictures as the silhouettes of women seated at a cliff overlooking the sea. The violet sky tones sometimes recall Turner. The influence, in Ger- many, of English landscape painting of that period, is as yet uninvestigated. Philip Runge is another favorite artist of romantic youths and maidens. He was much pre- occupied with color theories, about which he corresponded with Goethe. Runge, however, did not actually experiment, as did Delacroix two decades later, in order to increase the glowing and suggestive power of colors in his paintings. He was concerned with the physics of color, and also with its symbolism. The soft and somewhat sentimental manner of his family portraits (derived indirectly from David) has gained him many admirers in recent times. -A typical sketch is exhibited, that of his wife, brother, and himself. A large Rest on the Flight into Egypt, strangely recalling a Carracci composition, but with a fairy tale tree and rainbow-like colors, is included. Runge is a poet, one can see this in his art, perhaps just a trifle too much.

The Nazaremer, of course, could not be represented with their large, pious, pale and thin frescoes from the Villa Massimo in Rome. As examples of their work we have a few drawings by Cornelius, Overbeck, and a great many by Carolsfeld (the Nibelungen). Carstens, who in my

TWENTY-TWO


opinion was the strongest personality of the early Ro- mantics, is not represented. Of Karl Blechen only a few interesting drawings are here, but none of his plein-air paintings. Otherwise, all the famous talents of the Jabrhundertaustellung are present: G. A. Koch's, Olivier's and Kobell's landscapes; clever sketches for stage settings by Schinkel, the famous architect; an imposing female portrait by Schick, the pupil of David; the amiable illus- trations of Schwind. There are drawings by the Tyrolian Wassman, also discovered in 1903 though his reputation has not grown since. There are also fine examples of the painters of the second half of the XIX century.

Also romantic, but not in a Gothic or symbolic manner, rather idealizing in a formal way, are the later Auselm Feuerbach and Hans von Marees, followed up by the coarser and louder Arnold Boecklin. All these three monu- mental painters are unthinkable without Italy, Rome and the classical museums. Feuerbach, the most scholarly, was in the atelier of Couture in Paris, and never quite rid himself of the somewhat thin and pseudo-classic lines of the painter of Les Romans de La Decadence. His Iphigenias and Medeas are invested with classic nobility, somewhat lacking in temperament, yet quite beautiful. Though he is a rigid draughtsman, he is a very fine colorist and sen- sitive to tone values.

Hans von Marees, even more problematic than Feuer- bach, tortured himself and his pictures with the Problem der Form, which is also the name of the famous little book of art theory by the well-known sculptor, Adolphe Hilde- brandt, who was very close to his entire group. His monu- mental paintings, of which many remained unfinished have deeply aroused the German youth for a long time. It is significant that it was Julius Meier-Graefe, condemned for advocating French impressionism, who gave the im- petus towards the appreciation of Marees by his three vol- ume work on that master.

Arnold Boecklin is weaker, but not to be left out of German art, if only because of the battles that have raged over his art or pseudo-art, battles in which again Meier- Graefe was leader in the opposition. The various attempts to make Boecklin popular with people of other nations have been of no avail.

In my opinion, the only German master of the nineteenth century of European "format" is Wilhelm Leibl. He has learned much in the realistic-impressionistic school in Paris. Courbet was his friend and regarded him highly. A detail of the Poachers to be seen in this exhibition, shows his extraordinary talent. It is to be regretted that his portrait of Pallenberg had to be removed. He is the only modern German painter who may be said to have a bond with Holbein, for he is equally uncompromising, although keener in psychology and broader in technique.

If we survey again the exhibition from which we have pointed out many outstanding pieces, and supply with the help of the catalogue the pictures that have been removed, we come back to the original problem: can we find a unity in early and modern German art, and can we formulate a principle that will embrace the divergent tendencies of German art, and contrast it with that of other countries.

According to the je ne sais quoi formula-cosmic, irrational, mystic-only a few romantic artists can be called German. If we force this principle upon German art, however, many great and important masters are unac- counted for. This is impossible. I believe, we have to admit that German art can even less be characterized by a slogan than the arts of France and Italy. To the individuals and the diverse tendencies themselves separate con- sideration must be given.

ARTISTS

FROM THE EVERYWHERE OUTSTANDING

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AQUA-CHROMATIC WATER COLOR

EXHIBITION 1936-1937

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I

ll TWENTY-THREE


Article Contentsp. 9p. 10p. 11p. 22p. 23

Issue Table of ContentsParnassus, Vol. 8, No. 6, Nov., 1936Front Matter [pp. 1 - 32]Carnegie International, 1936 [pp. 5 - 8]Five Centuries of German Art [pp. 9 - 23]Gericault [pp. 12 - 15]Picasso, the Spanish Charivari [pp. 16 - 18]A Stylistic Change in Sung and Yuan Landscape Painting [pp. 19 - 21]Current Exhibitions [pp. 24 - 34]Museum News [pp. 28 - 34]Notes [pp. 29 - 35]New Books on Artuntitled [p. 31][Illustration]: Adoration. Raffaelino del Garbo [p. 31]untitled [p. 31]untitled [p. 32]untitled [p. 32]untitled [p. 32]untitled [p. 32]untitled [pp. 32 - 33][Illustration]: Near Wilkes-Barre. Tromka. In a one-man show at the A. C. A. Gallery until Nov. 14 [p. 33]untitled [p. 33]untitled [p. 33]untitled [p. 33]

Calendar of Current Exhibitions [p. 36]Back Matter [pp. 35 - 35]

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