Stand upright

Stand upright - for Herbert Belter, Ernst Bloch, Werner Ihmels, Hans Mayer, Wolfgang Natonek, Siegfried Schmutzler is a painting by the Leipzig painter Reinhard Minkewitz from 2015.

History of origin

The picture was taken from the Leipzig writer Erich Loest commissioned and - after two preliminary studies (Draft I and II) completed in 2007 and 2010-2015. It shows the political victims of the GDR regime named in the picture title in the ideological disputes of the 1950s and 1960s at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig . Minkewitz and Loest, who had studied in Leipzig himself, understood it as an answer to Werner Tübke's giant painting of the old masters, the working class and the intelligence , which shows the so-called “winners of history” . Both paintings are now hanging in the Leipzig university building. Even in the context of the presentation of Draft I (2007), “Loest criticized what he believed to be a“ rowdy ”historical oblivion by the university and the public. Tübke, he complains, glorified [the] power that destroyed »the university created by the bourgeoisie« and with it the »humanistic soul of Leipzig«. "

Image interpretation

To the form

In contrast to draft I, the external structure of which is comparable to an altarpiece (with a sacrificial theme ), here: a triptych without predella , in draft II and in the final version, the one that is more than nine meters long and 2.60 meters high fades Image exists, the (ostensible) religious connotation ; but the latter can from the image genesis formal and i out. S. of an altar sheet ( reduced in Renaissance and Baroque ).

Depicted people

You can see from left to right:

• Herbert Belter (1929–1951), who, as a student, distributed freedom of expression leaflets in 1950 and was sentenced to death by a Soviet military court ,
• Georg-Siegfried Schmutzler (1915-2003), Evangelical Lutheran student pastor who was sentenced to five years in prison in a show trial in 1957 , of which he served four years,
• Werner Ihmels (1926–1949), a Christian youth work activist who was arrested by the Soviet secret service in 1947 and died while imprisoned in Bautzen ,
• Wolfgang Natonek (1919–1994), a liberal democrat and chairman of the first student council who was arrested in 1948, sentenced to 25 years in a labor camp and released in 1956,
• the philosopher Ernst Bloch (1885–1977), who was forced to retire in 1956 for ideological reasons ,
• the Germanist Hans Mayer (1907-2001), who did not return to the GDR in 1963 because of political differences from 1956, and
• Erich Loest (1926–2013) (rear view in conversation with Bloch and Mayer), who was arrested as a student in 1957, sentenced to seven and a half years in prison and released in 1963.

While the first four figures are standing, the last three are sitting - an indication that they at least ideally and initially affirmed the GDR system against which the others revolted early? Bloch and Mayer were also national prize winners of the GDR before they went to West Germany .

Painting technique and setting

The front view of the picture is in contrast to Tübke's polychrome painting in grisaille technique - a recapitulation of medieval panel painting - executed: “Leading time. Leaden colors. ”(Ingeborg Ruthe)“ His allegory-laden profundity, along with figurative mannerisms and surreal space, refers to precisely the Leipzig school that Tübke once helped to establish. ”(Günter Kowa) It shows next to the figures broken stone slabs from Caspar David Friedrich's painting the Arctic Ocean (to 1965 the Failed hope [!]) allude . In addition, the setting of a landscape of ruins is reminiscent of the simultaneous demolition of the almost undamaged Paulinerkirche in the background, visible in the elevation, and the war-damaged Augusteum with its classicist facade in 1968 and is to a certain extent (from the time level of the figures) as a prophetic anticipation or (of the painter's time level) can be interpreted as a Vaticinium ex eventu of the destruction (not only of the buildings) of the bourgeois university.

Illustrations of the picture versions

• Final version (2015, grisaille technique,> 900 cm × 260 cm). In: www.sueddeutsche.de ( online preview of the article below by Jens Bisky from March 29, 2007).
• Draft II (2010) (mixed media on canvas, 410 cm × 84 cm). In: www.reinhardminkewitz.de ( PDF ; 185 kB); " Handed over to the Media Foundation of Sparkasse Leipzig in May 2010 and hangs in the Media Campus Villa Ida , Menckestrasse 27 [,] Leipzig"
• Draft I (2007) (on a scale of approx. 1: 4, 3 parts, tempera, oil on wood, left and right panels each 65 cm × 26 cm, center panel 65 cm × 198 cm). In: www.leipziger-hof.de ( 2007 presentation in the Galerie Hotel Leipziger Hof and exhibition documentation ). - "It hangs permanently in the Erich-Loest-Haus in Mittweida ."

literature

• Jens Bisky : On the stage of the times. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . March 30, 2015, p. 11 (online preview see above).
• Thomas Mayer: “Stand upright” Reinhard Minkewitz and Erich Loest. Larger and clearer in its message: the second draft of a picture for the victims of the GDR regime ( PDF; 185 kB ). In: reinhardminkewitz.de, (last) accessed on August 15, 2016.
• Ingeborg Ruthe: The thing about standing upright. The writer Erich Loest had a counterpart to the Tübke panorama of the University of Leipzig painted. In: Berliner Zeitung . May 12, 2007 ( online without picture; facsimile with picture see above. Illustrations: Draft I [2007]).

Web links

• Reinhard Minkewitz on his homepage about the work.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Georg-Siegfried Schmutzler was sentenced under this name in 1957. For the name variants see also Art. Georg-Siegfried Schmutzler .
2. ↑ ^{a b c In} Minkewitz and in the literature, the drafts are simply referred to as “first” and “second (pictorial) draft”.
3. ↑ See illustrations and literature.
4. ↑ On the term “counter-image”, which has been used repeatedly since the discussion on the first draft, cf. Thomas Mayer: “Stand upright” : “Minkewitz still says today [2010]:“ I never, ever intended to create a counter-image to Werner Tübke's. However, this does not exclude that ›standing upright‹ can be understood in the context of the Tübke mural ›working class and intelligence‹. Painting the pictures was an exciting task because as a later born I could look back into that time. «” - The ambiguous term “counterpart” in Ingeborg Ruthe: The thing about standing upright. Ibid. Minkewitz's statement [from 2007] is reproduced: “And he [Minkewitz] takes back Loest's harsh designation“ counter-image ”; he prefers to call it a “historical dialogue” between two paintings, each of which is a “time stage”. ”- An introduction to the discussion about Tübke's picture was provided by Klaus Eberhard: The debate about Werner Tübke's mural. Thoughts on the current discussion (March 2007). In: leipziger-hof.de, accessed on December 21, 2015.
5. ↑ The (online) "Chronicle 2015" of the University of Leipzig records: "03/30/2015 [-] The University of Leipzig and the Peaceful Revolution Foundation are holding a festive vernissage with the two paintings in the lecture hall building in the presence of Mayor Burkhard Jung » Working Class and Intelligence "by Werner Tübke and" Stand upright ... "by Reinhard Minkewitz. Werner Schulz , civil rights activist and member of the board of trustees of the Peaceful Revolution Foundation, will give the celebratory speech entitled "Stand upright ..." . "In: uni-leipzig.de, accessed on December 21, 2015.
6. ^ ^{A b} Günter Kowa: Rowdy oblivion of history. Werner Tübke's Leipzig mural “Working Class and Intelligence” is to be given a “counter-image”. The client is the writer Erich Loest. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. May 14, 2007, archived in: leipziger-hof.de, accessed on December 21, 2015.
7. ↑ Ingeborg Ruthe: The thing with standing upright. 2007 (see literature ).
8. ↑ ^{a b} Reinhard Minkewitz on his homepage about the work.