The Week in Germany
Dear TWIG Readers, | ||||||
>From Albrecht Dürer to Caspar David Friedrich to Ernst Ludwig Kirchner to Gerhard Richter to Neo Rauch, Germany has produced many great artists. On May 24 a new Dürer exhibit opened in Nuremberg, where he was born in 1471 and died in 1528. Billed as the largest exhibit of works by the superstar German painter and printmaker in 40 years, it focuses on Dürer's early creative period up to 1505. His oeuvre includes incredibly detailed nature studies and copper plate engravings, as well as numerous self-portraits and portraits of friends and family. Among his most iconic images are a single, realistically rendered hare and a hauntingly depicted pair of human hands clasped in prayer. Many of Dürer's works now appear like modern masterpieces ahead of their time. He developed a kind of hyper-realist style of painting both flora and fauna that appears to anticipate 19th-century Realism. Dürer, who was by all accounts supremely self-confident and achieved a high level of fame and recognition during his own lifetime, was perhaps Germany's first ever "celebrity artist" - he was like a Picasso or Warhol of his time.
Another German painter with an impressive legacy that stands the test of time is Gabriele Münter, who died 50 years ago, in May 1962. Münter was a core member of the Munich-based Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter) group of Expressionist painters from 1911-14. Along with Paula Modersohn-Becker and Käthe Kollwitz, she is one of the few female German artists to have achieved lasting international fame. A longtime partner to the great Russian painter and Blue Rider founding member Wassily Kandinsky, Münter has earned widespread recognition in her own right as a great artist. While Kandinsky gradually transitioned to an ever more abstract style, her colorful paintings remained rooted in figurative depictions of scenes from her travels in Europe and her life in Germany. Exhibiting a touch of whimsy, some of her paintings also took on a humorous note. It is thanks to Münter - who kept paintings from Kandinsky and other Blue Rider artists safe from the Nazis during the Second World War - that so much of the great artworks she and her fellow Blue Rider artists produced survives to this day. Some of Münter's works are on display in her former home in the Bavarian village of Murnau, as well as at the Lenbachhaus museum in Munich, which houses an unparalleled collection of works by artists associated with the Blue Rider movement. (The reason: On her 80th birthday, Münter bequeathed her entire collection to the Lenbachhaus - a veritable treasure trove of Expressionist masterpieces.) In my humble opinion, the Lenbachhaus alone makes visiting Munich well worth the trip. I suppose the Oktoberfest might be fun, too, of course. But the No. 1 attraction to me, personally, in the beautiful, baroque-church-filled city of Munich is the Lenbachhaus museum and its simply breathtaking collection of Expressionist masterpieces. This is a good starting point to discover more about Münter, and an excursion to Murnau only serves to further showcase her brilliant paintings, which - like those of all great German Expressionists of the era - sought to convey specific inner emotions to the outer world via forms and color combinations hitherto uncommon in conventional art. (Later, alas, their works would be branded as "degenerate" by the artistically retarded Nazis, but they have since regained their rightful place in the canon of art history as great avant-garde masterpieces.) Karen Carstens Editor, The Week in Germany Webteam Germany.info |
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