Eberhard Martin Schmidt
Eberhard Martin Schmidt (born May 10, 1926 in Biberach an der Riss ; † November 6, 1995 in Weingarten (Württemberg) ) was an Upper Swabian sculptor , painter and graphic artist .
The way to art
Childhood and youth
On May 10, 1926, Eberhard Martin Schmidt was born in Biberach as the son of the parish priest Ludwig Schmidt and his wife Julia. Very early on, still in kindergarten, he began to draw and model with plasticine or clay. This tendency increased noticeably in the course of the following years.
After attending the elementary school in Weingarten - the father had been appointed pastor here in the meantime - EMS switched to the Altsprachliche Gymnasium in 1936
Ravensburg . His main interests were in art and the natural sciences, especially biology and here again with a focus on zoology. When he was twelve, a representation of the horse's anatomy hung over his bed; He knew every bone and muscle by heart until his death. The big professional goal was a veterinarian. In-depth observations, including microscopic examinations of all possible living beings and the drawing of the results, were a very important occupation for the adolescent. From these years some sketches and photographs of pictures, clay or plasticine figures have survived, which testify to an extraordinary ability of pictorial representation based on an exact observation of nature.
On the advice of an art educator, EMS probably took part in an all-German art competition for schoolchildren at the age of 16. With a clay relief on the subject of "replenishment", he is said to have been awarded in 1942 as "Großdeutscher Jugendmeister in Plastik" (Großdeutscher Jugendmeister in Plastik). From a related stay in Berlin , he probably returned home very thoughtful, especially with regard to the general mood and situation in the then Reich capital.
Military service and the post-war period
Drafted in Friedrichshafen as an anti-aircraft helper at the age of 17, Tacitus in school during the day , working at the gun at night, leading to the typical high school diploma at the time . Then Reich Labor Service and then the transition to the Wehrmacht mark the typical course of life in the last years of the war. After military training and war school, he went to war on the Eastern Front, where EMS was seriously wounded by a shot in the head in hand-to-hand combat at the end of April 1945.
After a few months of hospital experience in Soviet captivity and adventurous experiences during the escape, EMS was back in Weingarten in late autumn 1945. Also from the following months, which mainly served to regenerate and stabilize his health, there were sketches, small paintings made with some kind of, often shabby, painting materials. Veterinary medicine was still the professional goal. At the University of Tübingen it was possible to study zoology in preparation for this. EMS applied there and drew attention to itself in the zoological institute of that time with its drawings. After a few weeks, however, the realization took hold that he was very fascinated by the anatomy and morphology of humans and animals, but ultimately not by pathology.
To the horror of those around him, EMS turned his back on the university, came back to Weingarten and wanted to become a sculptor. He did internships at various stonemasons and in stone processing companies in the near and far vicinity. He got to know the variety of stones as a material and means of expression, dealt extensively with scripts, made stone sculptures and worked gravestones. During this time he acquired a profound knowledge of practical sculpture.
Experience with Professor Staneika
Again and again he sought to find artistic exchange and suggestions in discussions in art academies and with their professors, and each time he returned disappointed from the firmly cemented academy business. In the meantime EMS got to know Professor Adalbertas Staneika, former director of the art academy in Kaunas / Lithuania. As a high diplomat at the same time politically persecuted, he ended up in Ravensburg in the chaos of war. EMS became a private student of Professor Staneika until he emigrated to America in 1949.
“After the Second World War, when I started my career as a sculptor, my lucky star brought me together with Professor A. Staneika, who was then living in Ravensburg. I was his student for several years. During that time Staneika introduced me to new dimensions of life. As for drawing, I'm grateful to Staneika for teaching me a very expressive and solid technique. His corrections and instructions, combined with artistic realism, dug such a clear trace that his footsteps are visible right up to my last work ...... "
In addition to realizing your own ideas, this era is a time of intensive training based on portrait drawings, countless studies and copies of classics. In painting, color studies in an impressionistic manner are preferred.
Wandering years
The "wandering years" followed in the early 1950s. The months of trips to Italy, the EMS - mainly on foot - brought important impressions. a. via Venice , Milan , Florence , Carrara , Rome to Naples . In addition to the landscape, his main interest was of course art, especially antiquity , Romanesque and masterpieces from the Renaissance and Baroque periods , which he studied in detail on the spot. Again and again he practiced with stonemasons or in the quarries of Carrara to familiarize himself with the material and techniques. During a longer stay in Monte Cassino ( Montecassino ) he worked on the reconstruction of the old monastery, from which a lifelong interest in the order's founder Benedict of Nursia derives.
The impressions of extensive trips to the Netherlands, longer stays in different regions of Germany, further trips to the Alpine countries and repeatedly to Italy were visibly reflected in numerous pictures, sketches and memos. Above all, however, a style of his own with his own technique developed during these years: more and more often a red chalk pencil gave precise contours to the sketches, the plasticity increased, the sculptor became unmistakable even on the two-dimensional background. The search for a valid form that not only reflected the naturalistic phenomenon, but was permeable to a reality behind it, moved more and more into the center of all artistic creation.
The experiment with different techniques
From around 1950 onwards, instead of the oil-prima technique, the resin-glaze technique, a modification of the techniques of Titian and Rembrandt, which, due to its complexity, also allows other color transparencies than a covering process, is increasingly used in painting. From then on, the watercolors also become more “transparent” in their effect. EMS found a new form of plastic expression in ceramics around the mid-1950s. In contrast to classical sculpture, which peel the figure out of the material, he is fascinated by the additive, the structural end. In addition to vases and bowls, for example, a series of sixteen terracottas, female figures the size of statuettes, which - named after the Greek alphabet - explore the expressive variants of the female psyche in their formal design.
In the course of the following years there were more monumental animal sculptures, large vessels and, above all, models for large sculptures that were formed from clay using the construction technique and then fired.
The aesthetics of writing and philosophical considerations
During this time around 1952 EMS also developed his personal font, letters and numbers according to his own aesthetic ideas, which he used from then on for artistic notes, but also for general recordings.
In addition to the pictorial representations, extensive treatises on philosophical and social problems such as "The state is a demony", "Evil as a problem of society", "Death as a problem of society", on freedom and peace research will emerge more and more frequently in the coming years . In “Conversations in the Dark”, well-known, long deceased personalities discuss issues that are still highly topical today in fictional, exciting dialogues.
Experiences in India
In 1963/64, a long stay in India with his wife contributed significantly to the expansion of artistic and ideological experiences. After a week-long sea voyage, the journey goes from Bombay to Hyderabad, where EMS works for a few months at the College of Fine Arts and Architecture (now Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture and Fine Arts University ). Intensive discussions with students and colleagues about ancient and modern art, religion, traditional ideas and lifestyles give lasting insights into other forms of life, belief and expression. A final trip through South India, through jungle and coastal landscapes, in cultural and ancient temple cities deepen these impressions.
The first exhibition
Back in Germany, this sustained response can be seen in an abundance of sketches, pictures and sculptures. In the autumn of 1964, EMS arranged the first large art exhibition he had designed in the Old Theater in Ravensburg with around 60 works, sculptures and pictures. The reviews couldn't be more different. The visitors were filled with everything from great enthusiasm to obvious dislike. The different reactions to his art and the resulting distraction from his actual task as an artist, to devote his undivided strength and attention exclusively to the realization of his artistic ideas, led Eberhard Martin Schmidt to decide never to organize an exhibition again .
Thirty years of intense creativity
The following decades are characterized by intense creative periods in every respect: The publicly known large-scale sculptures emerge, paintings, watercolors, sketches, drafts for executed or only planned projects are lined up in close succession, further manuscripts on philosophical and social issues and an abundance of sonnets are written.
In ORA, a philosophical - ideological poem, EMS finds its own literary form, which in a fixed structure, traces the general artistic creative process, thematizes all essential areas of life and belief and seeks overarching answers to existential questions. Long and short trips with the family, passionate discussions about upcoming political, social and religious questions in open-minded discussion groups, provide innumerable suggestions that are further developed, further thought and find their artistic or literary expression.
In the last thirty years of his work, EMS found a technique particularly suited to the sculptor in the production of woodcuts. The mostly multicolored wood prints - Bible illustrations, but also animal and fairy tale motifs - show new, stylistically unmistakable and unmistakable possibilities of expression.
Motif and artistic implementation
The choice of a motif is much less problematic for EMS than its artistic implementation:
“The artist doesn't need any special incentives to create. Special motifs do not result in special works of art. ” (KT, Part 3).
And elsewhere:
“The artist must be careful not to want to appear original. The study of the great can easily lead to this tendency, since they force everything they touch into their personal form. To strive for such originality from the outset is a mistake for every artist. Wherever you wanted to go, the relevant word has already been said in every direction. If you wanted to give a particularly precise drawing - it couldn't be more precise than Holbein or Leibl, or if you wanted to get the last bit of color out of a motif - van Gogh will have already anticipated it in a 'modest' picture, which also thought, the contour, still with a special color. In the direction of chiaroscuro, Rembrandt emerges as an insurmountable originality. The force of the composition cannot exist either; this originality would get stuck in front of the frescoes by Raphael and Michelangelo, even if one wanted to take even the most unusual, the most impossible, perhaps even the most pathological, in order to achieve this originality - any Picasso, Paul Klee or Chagall would have anticipated that too. The original cannot be thought out or selected. "
“It is perhaps for the best, one assumes right from the start that one is somehow original - anyway, without being able to influence it. And now immediately start designing everything that occurs to you: a portrait, a landscape, a still life; you can copy (as precisely as possible and using the technique of the original) and everything as if you only wanted to reproduce exactly what is in front of your eyes. But then something has usually crept into all of the works that you didn't even think about: a certain conception of the motifs, a mood or special brushwork - that's a bit original. Now just don't pay too much attention to it, but work even more naturalistically and don't be afraid of copying. Genuine originality prevails, no matter how carefully you copy it. The most important thing in everything is: Your own perception, the way you see things, must be the most natural and natural for you, even if it appears to others to be very extreme. If you really see that and feel that way, then the originality remains real. " (KT, Part 4)
At EMS, the demand for a naturalistic representation already includes an artistic way of seeing and has nothing to do with photographic accuracy. It is always about abstracting the natural specifications in such a way that a sublimate of the essential arises:
“Since the artist sets a framework, he also has to draw conclusions within the framework and not just give a piece of nature. It must appear squeezed in or cut out. The invention of photography is very beneficial to art. A photo intensifies the contrast between false and real art. ” (KT; Part 2).
And elsewhere:
“The naturalistic aspect of a picture must not stand out. But it is noticeable when it is wrong. ” (KT, Part 2).
The same applies to a plastic:
“Body theory is anatomy, proportion and movement. Shouldn't stand out in art. But it is noticed when it is wrong. " (KT, Part 2)
The absurdity
From all the remarks one can hear the deep aversion of EMS to rape natural forms, which for him are of inimitable perfection. The following passages also show that he can never get by with a flat naturalism:
“There is an absurdity in a picture. The composition makes this absurdity appear natural. If an artist succeeds in depicting a landscape with photographic accuracy, it will perhaps be a good study. A picture lacks the absurdity that has been resolved, e.g. For example, a green sky over a blue cornfield in a von Gogh color composition appears quite natural. Or watch the coats, hats, weapons, etc. that Rembrandt puts on his biblical figures. In a play they would seem so improbable that the impression would be almost ridiculous. How different in the pictures, i.e. H. in his pictures, because Rembrandt's art of composition is required to bring these figures into the natural, even into the sublime. The absurd is not to be understood as something absurd or exalted, but rather something unimaginable, something that has not yet been realized ...... ” (KT, Part 3).
“The enemy of the artist is the conventional. You have to find an original section, never like a postcard. Better to drive it ad absurdum, then you can see and harmonize ... " (KT, Part 1)
EMS always carried sketch pads with you for all large and small ventures. If no one was at hand, any piece of paper did it, often written on or printed on one side. The sheets are full of direct impressions of spontaneous experiences, peculiarities or any formal or newly seen details. The motifs for watercolors or paintings, on the other hand, are very carefully selected and are to be understood as an overall impression, as the essence of a person, a landscape, an animal species or anything else.
The watercolor
Figure studies, sketch pad XII, 1956, CR 1785
Wild horse foal, design for a sculpture, sketch pad XIV, 1959, WVZ 1958
Two willows, watercolor, 1962, WVZ 0348
Peat engraving, watercolor, 1962, WVZ 0319
For example, a landscape watercolor was created every weekend for a whole year, capturing impressions of color and mood over the course of the seven days in a compressed form. During the week, red chalk sketches of landscape forms were collected, often with color information, composition notes, and color studies as clues. A valid solution was then found in the studio within a very short time - often less than half an hour.
“Art is limitation, renunciation. You can never show everything. You have to go into what attracts .... ” (KT, Part 2).
For example, the special color of the sky, willow bushes in the wet blue February snow, cloud formations typical of the season, chestnuts in bloom or the mirror of a forest edge in a pond characterize a week. It is inevitable and self-evident for EMS that color laws in the annual cycle or typical time of day color constellations and rules can be derived from this occupation. While most of the paintings for EMS were regarded as "finished" after the first round, it could well be with some that the background was often painted over after years, hands were given a slightly different expression, colors experienced slight changes.
The plastic
Pied Piper from Hameln, ceramics, 1949, WVZ 0911
Benedikt von Nursia, oak wood, 1980, VMS 0203
Madonna and Child, plaster model relief, 1948, WVZ 0232
Mandrill with bird, glazed ceramic, 1973, WVZ 0130
Plätzlerbrunnen in Weingarten, Granit, 1975, WVZ 0237
Sculptures, regardless of whether they are stone, wood or ceramic, are always made in one go and without corrections. The choice of material, technique, size, and expression are decided in advance, whereby considerations about the format come first and are based on general rules:
“Formats are not absolute, they are based on the motifs. In general, the formats are measured according to human dimensions. A life-size modeled sparrow does not have a ´life-size format´, but belongs in the trinket format .... “ (KT, part 2).
For the three-dimensional representation of human figures, but also with animals, EMS can only use either a statuette format or a clearly larger than life size. Life-size sculptures appear dwarfed. In the case of larger sculptures, the intended location played a central role for EMS. He often went there, at different times of the day and at different times of the year, and imagined the corresponding effect. In any case, the requirement that a fully plastic form must not show a dull view and that a reversed view in the mirror must be consistent is an irrefutable principle at work.
“With a sculpture, you can't let the front, back, left and right become an aplastic form. It does not help to twist this front z. B. in a bust, the front of the face to the chest at an angle by turning the head sideways. A form must be seen in itself as three-dimensional ... " (KT, Part 5)
The basis of art from the perspective of the artist EMS
“Everything the artist creates comes through the spirit. The soul is unproductive. The spirit is the only creative thing. He can do anything; everything lives through him. He is the impetus and sustainer. He stands outside of all laws, effects and forms. Everything else has form, is in the law and is itself unproductive. The artist's works are works of the spirit that has passed through him. An artist must keep as free as possible from all ties that claim his soul. " (KT, Part 2)
Post mortem
- October 19 to November 16, 2003 Eberhard Martin Schmidt - sculptures and pictures, exhibition in the city museum in the Schlössle Weingarten
- 2003 Publication of the poetry collection of the artist "ORA" by Dr. Eva Maria Schmidt, Weingarten
- 2012/2013 exhibition in the old church Mochenwangen
- Spring / Summer 2013 Exhibition “Religious Sculptures and Pictures” in the Museum for Monastery Culture, Weingarten with Jürgen Hohl
- A complete, previously unpublished catalog of works (WVZ) with over 2000 objects has been available since spring 2014. A separate directory of child and youth work (KJV) was also created.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Eberhard Martin Schmidt quoted from: F. Adriunas: Adalbertas Staneika - Lithuanian Artist Painter and Diplomat, 1987 Wyncote, Philadelphia, p. 19. Translation: Eva M.Schmidt
- ^ Schmidt, Eberhard Martin: ORA, edited by Dr. Eva Maria Schmidt, Ravensburg 2003
- ↑ The quotations used in this section refer to the various unpublished artist diaries (KT), which are privately owned by Dr. Eva Maria Schmidt, Weingarten.
- ↑ Eberhard Martin Schmidt (1926–1995) - sculptures and pictures. Catalog for the exhibition from October 19 to November 16, 2003 City Museum in the Schlössle Weingarten. Ravensburg 2003.
Web links
- http://www.ems-kunst.de/
- http://www.schwaebische.de/region_artikel,-Seine-Kunst-wollte-immer-zum-Kern-der-Dinge-_arid,5445440_toid,541.html
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Schmidt, Eberhard Martin |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German painter, graphic artist and sculptor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 10, 1926 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Biberach an der Riss |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 6, 1995 |
| Place of death | Weingarten (Württemberg) |