The wise and the foolish virgins (Rée)
The clever and the foolish virgins is the title of a mural created in 1929 by the painter Anita Rée . It was located in a room of the vocational school for female employees , today the Uferstrasse vocational school in Hamburg-Barmbek-Süd, and was destroyed in 1942.
description
The image goes back to the New Testament parable of the wise and foolish virgins , in which the wise made provision, but the foolish wasted their time adorning themselves. In the discussions about its execution, it was described as “festive and large” and the colors were particularly emphasized: the silver-gray maiden with their blue-black hair and pale blue scarves stood out against the red-primed surface. In the center of the picture, golden rays promising paradise fell through a locked door. The lights of the good and the decorations of the foolish were also gold-colored; the lambs that included the two doors of the room were symbolically in black and white.
background
With this topic, the artist wanted to address the students of the newly built vocational school and saw it as an "allusion to a turning point in the ideals of the women's movement , to insight and self-confidence." The background to the order was the art funding program wall paintings in Hamburg state buildings of the then Hamburg chief building director Fritz Schumacher together with the local art care commission, which was supposed to help artists through existential crises with an emergency program between 1929 and 1932. A total of 26 orders were placed with 16 artists for interior design in new public buildings, primarily schools. The special attraction consisted of the large areas to be designed, which made it possible to try out the mural painting, which was much discussed in the 1920s. After performing the clever and the foolish virgins , Anita Rée received another commission for the higher girls' school in Hamburg-Hamm , today the ballet school of the Hamburg Ballet , which she designed with the picture Orpheus with the animals .
destruction
The image of the clever and the foolish virgins was rejected from the beginning by the teachers of the school and was the subject of public criticism. In addition to the lack of understanding for the expressive execution, there was public outrage over the use of a Christian motif by an artist who was considered Jewish. On October 30, 1933, the National Socialist Mayor Carl Vincent Krogmann decreed that "Anita Rée's picture should be hung." In 1942 it was painted over or scratched from the wall.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Anita Rée, quoted from: Maike Bruhns : Art in the Crisis. Hamburg art in the “Third Reich”. Dölling and Galitz Verlag, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-933374-94-4 , p. 41.
- ↑ Carl Vincent Krogmann in a daily report of October 30, 1933, quoted from: Maike Bruns: Art in the Crisis. Hamburg art in the “Third Reich”. P. 183.