Bremen artist dispute

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The Bremen artist dispute  - also known as the Bremen art dispute - was a controversy about the importance of modern art and the influence of gallery managers, art critics and dealers on the development of German painting at the beginning of the 20th century . Initially only carried out in Bremen art circles, the artists' dispute gained interest throughout Germany in 1911. The division of artists and their audiences, which emerged in the course of the controversy, into defenders of traditional history , landscape and portrait painting on the one hand and supporters of new currents such as open-air painting , Expressionism and Art Nouveau , on the other hand , can be seen as part of the extensive social change at the turn of the century around to be understood. With the emergence of reform-oriented forces in politics and culture, the conservative conception of art that had prevailed in the Hanseatic city up until then, which was shaped by the merchant class and the upper classes, was called into question, which in turn prompted traditional forces to vehemently criticize the new developments.

prehistory

Caricature on the Bremen artists' dispute with Arthur Fitger as Don Quixote , 1912

The beginnings of the artist dispute go back to the year 1899, when the art association in Bremen appointed the art historian Gustav Pauli as the first scientific director at the Kunsthalle Bremen . Soon after his employment, his interest in new tendencies in painting was shown through a first exhibition of works by the then largely unknown painter Paula Becker in Worpswede . Probably the most renowned Bremen artist of that time, Arthur Fitger , chairman of the Kunstverein, wrote a harsh criticism in the Weser newspaper , in which he later also included the work of Heinrich Vogeler . A first exchange of blows in the press developed when the Worpswede painter Carl Vinnen , also a member of the Kunstverein, defended the artist in an article in the Bremer Courier , although he himself classified her art as “immature student work”. In addition to this criticism of new artistic styles, a second core aspect of the looming artist dispute emerged around the turn of the century, when Pauli was accused of buying the picture Lady in a Green Dress (Camille) by Claude Monet in 1906 , “foreign art to the detriment of local people favoring Germans ".

The artist dispute

Vincent van Gogh : Poppy Field (1889), Kunsthalle Bremen

Regardless of this, Pauli continued his purchasing policy and in 1910 acquired the painting Poppy Field by Vincent van Gogh for the collection of the Kunsthalle for 30,000  marks . In this context, Pauli's assistant Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub described the museum director's collection concept in the art magazine Die Güldenkammer as follows: “In addition to the group of Worpswede artists [...], the main focus should always be on the acquisition of pictures by French and German masters, who drew the greatest benefit from the French development. ”This initially led to an internal dispute in the art association when Vinnen complained that contemporary German art was underrepresented in Pauli's concept. Pauli contradicted this impression and listed in a letter to Vinnen recent acquisitions of German art, including works by Franz von Stuck , Wilhelm Trübner , Heinrich von Zügel and others.

The beginning of the open artist dispute was marked by a warning to the Kunstverein von Vinnen published in the Bremer Nachrichten in January 1911 , in which he criticized Pauli's collection policy and called for the acquisition of works of art to be placed in the hands of a commission. In this article, Vinnen also spoke out against the supposed “great invasion of French art” in Germany and the excessive prices at which those works were bought, caused by speculation in the art trade. Pauli then gave a reply on January 8th that he had acquired more German than French works for the Kunstverein in recent years. In addition, he emphasized the special importance of French painting for the development of modern art and argued that the high prices of the works were solely due to the high quality of the art.

As a result, the dispute began to spread throughout Germany, beginning with the article Fantasies in the Bremen Kunsthalle on January 11 in the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger . In it, van Gogh was described as a "representative of color madness" and the purchase of the poppy field by Pauli was interpreted as proof of the dangerous power of the art trade. On January 16, the writer and critic Karl von Perfall accused progressive museum directors such as Pauli, but also Alfred Lichtwark and Hugo von Tschudi of being assistants in the art trade in the Kölnische Zeitung . This was followed by a defense of the accused under the title Again a hate speech against a museum director in the National-Zeitung from Berlin, in which Vinnen was identified as the author of the criticism and described as reactionary , whereupon he decided against Perfalls in a reply on January 21 Standpoint distanced. In the meantime, Pauli published two texts in the Bremer Nachrichten and the Güldenkammer in which he outlined his collection policy and once again emphasized the historical importance of van Gogh, who "came on the way from Impressionism to a monumental, in the high sense decorative form of expression."

At the end of January 1911, Vinnen sent a draft of a text with his criticism of the German art market under the heading Quousque tandem ('How long still?') To Pauli and asked Pauli to comment on it. Pauli replied that he definitely agreed with Vinnen in many of his criticisms, and that he also rejects “the absurd imitations of the very latest French, as we got to know in Düsseldorf and so on. […] ”And added that he, too,“ did not want to reveal anything about our German style. ”Despite this convergence of viewpoints, both“ camps ”began to contact supporters of their positions and to collect statements for publication.

A protest by German artists , April 17, 1911

On April 17th, an 80-page brochure by Vinnens was published by Eugen Diederichs in Jena under the title Ein Protest deutscher Künstler . 123 artists agreed to his criticism - some of them with their own statements. The supporters of the protest particularly criticized the infiltration of the art market and collections in Germany. As an alternative, they advocated preservation of the existing traditions and the promotion of their own "national art":

“We don't want a Chinese wall, a protective tariff for our art, no chauvinistic German foolishness, no blocking off something valuable just because it comes from beyond the borders. Otherwise we would have to turn against the old masters, against works that were and remain venerable to all peoples and all times. [...] Therefore, no customs revision in the realm of the ideal, but free, noble competition of spirits, mutual fertilization of high cultures! But in the name of this freedom, fight against an interest group that has become so overpowering in Germany and their allies, the aesthetes and the snobs! By trying to bring art values ​​back to their own level, we believe we are not only serving German art, but art in general. "

- Carl Vinnen : A Protest by German Artists (excerpt)

The signatories of the protest letter included Jacob Alberts , Benno Becker , Ludwig Dill , Hans am Ende , Walter Georgi , Otto Greiner , Hugo von Habermann , Karl Haider , Käthe Kollwitz , Gotthardt Kuehl , Franz Servaes and Franz von Stuck .

In the fight for art , June 1911

In June 1911, Piper Verlag in Munich published the 182-page reply to Vinnen's publication under the title Im Kampf um die Kunst. The answer to the “protest of German artists” . In this brochure, 47 artists and 28 gallery managers, writers and art dealers defended the attacked museum directors and French impressionism - as Pauli's letter to Vinnen said, Pauli's supporters agreed with Vinnen's criticism on the question of an independent national art, but rejected them whose pessimistic-critical attitude from:

“In the Kunsthallen we believe that we have only taken into account [the] facts drawn by Vinnen by collecting in characteristic works those French masters who have fertilized German art. If one takes a closer look at Vinnen's deductions, all that remains is that, in his opinion, the great age of French painting has now passed. Well, most of them will be able to agree on that. But what does that prove? [...] The development never stops, it continues as long as the earth is turning, as long as people live, love and fight on it. But we don't yet know which way the development will take beyond Cézanne and van Gogh, since we are not prophets [...]. "

- Gustav Pauli : In the fight for art. The answer to the "Protest of German Artists" (excerpt)

The signatories of the reply included Max Beckmann , Lovis Corinth , Wassily Kandinsky , Gustav Klimt , Georg Kolbe , Max Liebermann , August Macke , Franz Marc , Otto Modersohn , Carl Moll , Ernst Oppler , Max Pechstein and Max Slevogt .

In the following months, numerous articles and further statements on the artist dispute appeared in the German press: over 30 in the Bremen press alone and over 60 in the national German press, but the dispute was even reported in Vienna, Paris and New York. In addition, two publications were published in autumn 1911 that followed Vinnen's criticism: Carl Vinnen and his opponents. A contribution to the German artists' dispute by August Piening and The Degradation of German Art by the Partisans of Impressionism by Theodor Alt  - the latter work, however, in its categorically anti-modern stance went far beyond Vinnen's criticism.

Aftermath

At its starting point in Bremen, the artist dispute continued at the turn of the year 1911/1912, when Gustav Pauli first exhibited 51 works by van Gogh from the Commeter gallery in Hamburg in the Kunsthalle and then showed works by the German Association of Artists , including works by the New Artists' Association in Munich and the New Berlin Secession , which reignited the discussion about the importance of modern art in the city. At the invitation of Pauli's critics, Theodor Alt gave a lecture in Bremen on February 28, entitled On Power Issues in Art , in which he attacked the director of the Kunsthalle. Gustav Pauli answered on March 29th with the lecture The Tasks of the Modern Art Museum , in which he again attacked Alt. A subsequent libel suit against Pauli by Alt was dismissed.

When the Bremen citizenship decided to increase the subsidies for the Kunsthalle at the beginning of 1913, it was decided, at the request of Conservative MPs, that the Kunsthalle's buying committee should be supplemented by two representatives from the citizenship and one from the Senate . Shortly thereafter, however, the regulation had to be reversed after it was heavily criticized in public and seen as an attack on the independence of art. The dispute initiated by the Vinnen group ultimately had no concrete effects, especially since Pauli's successor, Emil Waldmann , continued his acquisition policy and, in addition to paintings from the 19th century, added other works of Impressionism and more recent art to the Kunstverein's collection.

various

  • On January 2, 2020, Deutsche Post AG issued a postage stamp worth 155 euro cents for A4 large letters in the series “Treasures from German Museums”. The motif shows Van Gogh's oil painting Poppy Field and, according to the reasoning, is also intended to be a reminder of the Bremen artist dispute.

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Between 1899 and 1910 Pauli acquired 84 works by German artists and 13 works by French artists.
  2. ↑ So named in reference to Wilhelm Hauff's novella Fantasias in the Bremen Ratskeller .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Wulf Herzogenrath, Ingmar Laehnemann (ed.): Noble guests. Masterpieces from the Kunsthalle Bremen are guests in 22 German museums . Hachmannedition, Bremen 2009, p. 148 .
  2. ↑ a b Wulf Herzogenrath, Ingmar Laehnemann (ed.): Noble guests. Masterpieces from the Kunsthalle Bremen are guests in 22 German museums . Hachmannedition, Bremen 2009, p. 149 .
  3. ↑ a b Wulf Herzogenrath, Ingmar Laehnemann (ed.): Noble guests. Masterpieces from the Kunsthalle Bremen are guests in 22 German museums . Hachmannedition, Bremen 2009, p. 150 .
  4. ^ Carl Vinnen (ed.): A protest of German artists . Eugen Diederichs, Jena 1911, p. 1 .
  5. ↑ Gustav Pauli (Ed.): In the fight for art. The answer to the “protest of German artists” . R. Piper & Co., Munich 1911, p. 3 .
  6. ↑ Wulf Herzogenrath, Ingmar Lähnemann (ed.): Noble guests. Masterpieces from the Kunsthalle Bremen are guests in 22 German museums . Hachmannedition, Bremen 2009, p. 152 .
  7. ↑ Wulf Herzogenrath, Ingmar Lähnemann (ed.): Noble guests. Masterpieces from the Kunsthalle Bremen are guests in 22 German museums . Hachmannedition, Bremen 2009, p. 153 .
  8. ↑ Program 2020: Series “Treasures from German Museums” Vincent van Gogh - Mohnfeld. In: Federal Ministry of Finance , January 2, 2020, accessed on January 3, 2020.
  9. ↑ picture of the day. Love, Vincent. In: Monopol , January 3, 2020, accessed January 3, 2020.