Christian Arnold

This article is about the painter Christian Arnold. For the architect see Christian Friedrich Arnold , for the doctor and death helper see Uwe-Christian Arnold

Christian Arnold (born March 11, 1889 in Fürth / Bavaria , † April 4, 1960 in Bremen ) was a German painter of the new objectivity .

After an apprenticeship as a sculptor and two years of wandering, he settled in Bremen. He married Agnes Mäder there in 1912, and the couple had three sons in the following years.

First World War

During the First World War Arnold was drafted, seriously wounded on the Eastern Front and had to spend twelve months in a hospital . When he was released in 1917, his left hand was completely paralyzed and a job as a sculptor was no longer an option. Arnold decided to become a painter. After a brief visit to the arts and crafts school in Bremen , whose atmosphere he found too tight, he began to continue his education as an autodidact .

Weimar Republic

In the years of privation after the war, Arnold was able to support his family by working as a draftsman for the electricity company, and he devoted almost all of his free time to painting. Many pen drawings and the first watercolors and woodcuts were created . The great inflation of 1923 brought all artistic activity to a standstill.

Already in the following year Arnold gave up his work as a technical draftsman - contrary to his wife's requests - in order to be able to work exclusively as a painter. Only a few works have survived from these years; they reflect Arnold's turn to new forms of expression that go beyond his original classical techniques and expressionistic forms and approach the New Objectivity . Arnold joined in 1925 as a member of the Bremen Artists' Association and the "Association for Young Art" founded in Bremen. With their support, he went public for the first time with an excerpt from his complete works. Further exhibitions followed, together with works by Felixmüller , Davringhausen and others. Like many artists of his era, he sympathized with the socialist-communist ideals of the Weimar period and was also politically active.

By the late 1920s, Arnold was in full possession of his artistic skills. He was extremely productive, painting hundreds of watercolors, but also important oil paintings . His work found increased public approval, which was also reflected in the sales figures. Inspired by a visit to Prague (1928), around 300 pictures were created in the following years based on sketches with motifs from this trip.

Due to his excessive working hours and his heavy nicotine consumption as well as his habit of shaping the brush with his lips while painting watercolors and thus swallowing paint residues, Arnold fell ill and had to go to St. Peter-Ording for a cure . This stay brought not only a clear improvement in his health, but also new motifs and pictures.

National Socialism

After the National Socialists came to power , Arnold was expelled from the “Bremer Künstlerbund”, and he was denied entry into the Reich Chamber of Culture - and with it the right to exhibitions and public sales. The family's poor financial situation forced him to return to paid work; Friends got him a job at the shipyard " AG Weser ". He painted evenings and weekends, but only sold a few works.

He did not hold back with his opinion on the political situation, refused the Hitler salute and was denounced . The charge was "preparation for high treason "; this “offense” could not be proven in the trial, but Arnold was sentenced to one year in prison for “ insulting the leader ”. Despite his wife's petition for clemency , he had to serve his sentence in Vechta . After his release he was initially able to work again at AG Weser.

As a result of the murderous war with which the German Wehrmacht invaded Europe, the Allies began to bomb German cities as well. On September 26, 1944, Arnold's home was hit by a bomb. Over a third of his artistic life's work was destroyed: 120 large oil paintings, 700 watercolors, numerous woodcuts, drawings and sketches. Arnold was arrested again four weeks later; he was accused of making statements hostile to the state. While in custody he was awaiting trial, again for "high treason". Only the process abduction by one of the judges, it was thanks to them that Arnold was not convicted (as in the last months before the war ended quite common) to death. Rather, he managed to leave the prison after the American invasion.

Post War and Death

Arnold was undoubtedly marked by the horror and abuse of his imprisonment. But he hardly spoke about what he had experienced. These experiences do not seem to be reflected in his works either; he turned to his familiar objects, especially the landscapes. But soon he was drawn to the sites of destruction in his hometown. Numerous rubble pictures were created , including masterful pen drawings, in particular of Bremen churches and their ruins, and watercolors.

The lack of suitable paper often forced him to paint on wrapping paper or gray cardboard. Tempera paints are particularly suitable for this. In 1948 Arnold was able to exhibit in the Bremen Kunsthalle , and in the early 1950s his productivity reached that of the early 1930s. Health restrictions also became more and more evident, Arnold suffered from shortness of breath and bronchial catarrh . Nevertheless, he tried out new techniques in the remaining years, such as a mixture of tempera and watercolor and the application of dots on poster cardboard. His subjects are the old ones: landscapes, cityscapes, occasional portraits .

Arnold died on April 4, 1960 in Bremen.

Rediscovery

It was not until the end of the 1970s that a wider public remembered the Bremen painter. The “New Objectivity” is increasingly perceived as a literary and visual art movement. With great effort, the artist's sons succeeded in compiling a catalog raisonné that included the entire inventory of pictures accessible at the time. Several exhibitions followed in the Bremen art gallery, private galleries in Berlin and other cities. Well-known gallery owners and art houses - for example Ketterer, Hauswedell & Nolte, Lehr  - always offer Arnolds, for which prices up to 6000 euros are paid today.

Works (selection)

• From a suburb. 1924
• Female nude in front of a landscape. 1929
• Clivie. 1934
• Portrait of Dr. Salander. Gouache and pencil, around 1924
• Winter landscape in Bremen. Watercolor over pencil, 1930s / 1940s
• On the coast. Gouache and watercolor, 1930s / 1940s

literature

• Herbert Arnold and Uwe Michael: Christian Arnold - painter of the new objectivity . Bremen 1980, ISBN 3-920699-28-9 .
• Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X .
• Gustav Adolf Salander: Bremen through six decades . Verlag Hauschild, Bremen 1977, ISBN 3-920699-15-7
• Gustav Adolf Salander: The ideal realism in contemporary painting . Guthe printing works, Bremen 1925
• Kunsthalle Bremen: Christian Arnold . Hauschild Verlag, Bremen 1979
• Municipal gallery Bremen: Time without conditions - art in Bremen after 1945 . Hauschild Verlag, Bremen 1985

Web links

• Information about Christian Arnold
• kettererkunst.de