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Recensione di Ingrid Leonie Severin, Leuphana University Lüneburg Numero di parole: 2112 parole Pubblicato on line il 2021-02-27 Histara les comptes rendus (ISSN 2100-0700). Link: http://histara.sorbonne.fr/cr.php?cr=3729 Link per ordinare il libro The Städel Museum’s exhibition and catalogue Making van Gogh: A German Love Story focuses on Germany’s early infatuation with the Dutch artist and addresses the special role that gallery owners, museums, private collectors and art critics played in Germany in the early twentieth century for the posthumous reception of van Gogh as the “father of modern art”.[1]
The exhibition
In three comprehensive chapters, the exhibition dealt with the development and impact of the “legend of van Gogh” in Germany. How did it come about that van Gogh became so popular, especially in Germany? Who championed his oeuvre and how did artists respond to it? The exhibition presented van Gogh as a pivotal figure for the art of the German avant-garde. It made an important contribution to understanding the development of art in Germany at the beginning of the twentieth century. Some epochal precursor exhibitions such as the 1990 van Gogh and the Modern Movement presented by the Museum Folkwang Essen and the van Gogh Museum Amsterdam and the 2006/07 show van Gogh and Expressionism, staged jointly by the van Gogh Museum and the Neue Galerie New York, serve as reference for this updated evaluation of new sources. Reviews of the Städel exhibition 2019 saw it as one of the finest shows on the artist in recent years (other than those at the Amsterdam museum dedicated to the painter) elegant, with a strong story line.[2] This exhibition presented around 50 works by van Gogh, either acquired by German collections or exhibited in Germany before the First World War. These were presented alongside 70 works by later German artists, painted up until the 1920s under the influence of the Dutch master. They exemplify van Gogh’s influence and impact on the subsequent generation. These include works by well-known artists such as Max Beckmann, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Alexej von Jawlensky, Paula Modersohn-Becker or Gabriele Münter as well as others whose artistic positions could be rediscovered, including Peter August Böckstiegel, Theo von Brockhusen, Heinrich Nauen or Elsa Tischner-von Durant. They visually illustrated his impact on early 20th century art in Germany. The Städel is an appropriate venue for Making van Gogh, since it was the first German public museum to acquire his works. Very early on, in 1908, it bought the painting Farmhouse in Nuenen and the drawing Peasant Woman planting Potatoes (both from 1885). Following extensive research the Städel exhibition was able to provide a strong display emphasizing the scope of Germany’s pre-1914 van Gogh holdings. These were mainly presented in the first section of the show, giving an excellent overview of the development of van Gogh’s work.[3]
The book
The catalogue-book itself is divided into three main sections. The first is devoted to the emergence of the myth surrounding him as person, the second focuses on his impact on German artists, and the third analyses his painting style. The catalogue entries are interwoven into these main sections and essays.
Elena Schroll in the chapter van Gogh in the Network of Modernism portrays clearly the networks relevant for the posthumous reception of van Gogh and introduces some of the patrons such as Willy Gretor and Maria Slavona, Julius Meier-Graefe, Bruno and Paul Cassirer, Count Harry Kessler and including Henry van de Velde. Whereas van Gogh’s works were initially sold above all to private persons, public collections began to acquire them also. The Folkwang Museum in Hagen (Karl Ernst Osthaus), museums in Bremen, Dresden, Frankfurt, Cologne, Magdeburg, Mannheim, Munich and Stettin. Through acquisitions, publications and exhibitions, they had an influence on van Gogh’s steadily mounting recognition and his becoming established in Germany.
Stefan Koldehoff‘s entry on van Gogh and his collectors in Germany, Heike Biedermann‘s reflections and research about the reception of van Gogh’s works in Dresden, and Joachim Kaak‘s description of the new type of art, a new milieu: Hugo von Tschudi, Rudolf Meyer-Riefstahl and Vincent van Gogh. All these essays contribute to draw a larger framework about the context of van Gogh‘s reception and they individually deliver extensively detailed insights into their topics.
Alexander Eiling in his second essay shows very comprehensively how the German artists, especially the German Expressionist Milieu, answered to van Gogh in diverging and different analytical artistic perspectives and pictorial approaches and a certain connectivity to his motifs. The admiration sometimes created misunderstandings, for example Otto Dix, Walter Ophey or Max Pechstein who took up van Gogh's sun paintings, the energetic symbol of seasonal change and renewal and transformed them into something opposite.
The very knowledgeable contribution of long-term van Gogh specialist Roland Dorn about publishing van Gogh 1891 – 1921 is of great value, as he traces in depth the early successful attempts to illustrate van Gogh’s coloration in the closest possible details during the first years when fine art publishing houses emerged and a whole range of new printing and reproduction procedures were invented. „Colour – its materiality, its interaction with the brushwork on the canvas, with other paintings on the wall or as “décoration” in the room – was, during the final years of his life, the pivot van Gogh’s works revolved around. The fragility of such sweeping concepts became evident as soon as artistic recognition was joined by commercial success“. The intellectual superstructure of his late works faded – it was never actually transparent – van Gogh’s treatment of colours, brushwork and subject became increasingly important. Roland Dorn also demonstrates the modern diagrammatic approach of van Gogh‘s concept as his intention to create ensembles was noticeable at most only in a rudimentary way e.g .in uncommon canvas sizes such as the “double squares” and “squares” characteristic of his last months in Auvers.
This book provides a good introduction for a broad audience and makes an interesting contribution to the history of van Gogh's reception. It also gives very well researched explanations about the shifting awareness of how van Gogh was received, providing new insights and elucidating the important commitment of the female early promoter of van Gogh‘s work. Although the essays are of a high quality, the picture-based exhibition panels or „subtexts“ interwoven between the essays lack related clarity. The haptic quality of the book and the quality of its reproductions could not be assessed.
The overall digital concept and the podcast accompanying the exhibition and catalogue are highly recommendable, for example the podcast closely connected to the contributions of Iris Schmeisser and Anna Huber to the catalogue on the subject of The portrait of Doctor Gachet: A Frankfurt Story.
[1] This review is based on the electronic version of the catalogue [2] Martin Bailey, "Van Gogh and Germany: Frankfurt mounts best show on the artist in recent years", The Art Newspaper, 25th Oct. 2019 : https://www.theartnewspaper.com/blog/van-gogh-and-germany-frankfurt-mounts-best-show-on-the-artist-in-recent-years [3] See the reviews of the show in different media coverage : - Manfred Clemens, "Van Gogh Superstar: Making van Gogh. Geschichte einer deutschen Liebe, Bemerkungen zur van-Gogh-Ausstellung im Städel-Museum Frankfurt a.M., zu van Gogh und zum Kunstmarkt", in: Website Gerda Henkel Stiftung 21.11.2019 : https://lisa.gerda-henkel-stiftung.de/vangogh_staedel - Stefan Trinks, "Des Malgotts flammende Hand", in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 21.10.2019 : https://www.faz.net/-gsa-9sgoy - Kia Vahland, "Wenn Mensch und Werk verschmelze", in: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 23. Oktober 2019 : https://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/kunst-vincent-van-gogh-frankfurt-am-main-1.4650833 - "Vincent van Gogh Ausstellung in FrankfurtBerauscht von leuchtenden Farben: Felix Krämer im Gespräch mit Gabi Wuttke" : Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Beitrag vom 21.10.2019 : https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/vincent-van-gogh-ausstellung-in-frankfurt-berauscht-von.1013.de.html?dram:article_id=461529 (All accessed on 20.01.2021) [4]For electronic access to the letters see : Marianne Jakobi, "L’édition électronique des lettres d’artistes : le cas van Gogh", in: Perspective [En ligne], 2 | 2011, mis en ligne le 30 juin 2013, (Assessed 01.10. 2020) URL : http:// journals.openedition.org/perspective/814 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/perspective.814 [5] Luijten Hans, Alles voor Vincent, Het leven van Jo Gesina van Gogh-Bonger, Uitgeverij Prometheus Amsterdam 2019 ISBN 9789044641660; van van Gogh Museum URL: https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/nl/over/kennis-en-onderzoek/afgeronde-onderzoeksprojecten/onderzoeksproject-de-biografie-van-jo-van-gogh-bonger see also the blog of Staedel Museum https://blog.staedelmuseum.de/johanna-van-gogh-bonger/ (Assessed 010.01.2021) Diaries : https://www.bongerdiaries.org/dagboek_jo_1 [6] Additional reading: Patrick Grant “My Own Portrait in Writing”: Self-Fashioning in the Letters of Vincent van Gogh, AU Press, Athabasca University 2015 isBN 978-1-77199-059-2 (pdf)
Content
van Gogh EXHIBITIONS IN GERMANY, 54- 69
ACQUISITIONS BY MUSEUMS AND PRIVATE COLLECTORS, 88- 107
SELF-PORTRAITS, 178-187
6 Anna Huber, “THE NORDIC PAINTER ONLY PAINTS WITH UNCUT EARS”: Vincent van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr Gachet in the Context of National Socialist Cultural Policy, 188-201
8 Heike Biedermann, BETWEEN RESTRAINT AND ENTHUSIASM: On the Reception of van Gogh’s Works in Dresden, 250-261
van GoghIANA, 262- 277
9 Joachim Kaak, A NEW TYPE OF ART, A NEW MILIEU: Hugo von Tschudi, Rudolf Meyer-Riefstahl and Vincent van Gogh, 278-287
FLAT ZONES 288-299
PAINTER OF THE SUN, 319-320
Alexander Eiling and Elena Schroll, CATALOGUE, 321-331
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Editori: Lorenz E. Baumer, Université de Genève ; Jan Blanc, Université de Genève ; Christian Heck, Université Lille III ; François Queyrel, École pratique des Hautes Études, Paris |