Eugen Kalkschmidt

Grave of Eugen Kalkschmidt in the forest cemetery in Munich-Solln

Eugen Kalkschmidt (born December 10, 1874 in Buddelkehmen , (today: Budelkiemis ), † February 1, 1962 in Munich ) was a German writer, editor, art historian and actor. On July 3, 1905, he married the painter Olga Therese Batsch (1876–1959). His daughter Beate Kalkschmidt (1933-2013) was also active as a writer. Eugen Kalkschmidt is buried in the forest cemetery in Munich-Solln .

Life

Childhood and origin

Eugen Kalkschmidts childhood played mostly on the family farm south of the city Memel in the same Memel in East Prussia from. The middle property of the family, measured by the circumstances at the time, was directly adjacent to the property of the maternal grandparents, who had been there since the 18th century. The father (born on September 2, 1832), a poor son from the Tilsiter lowlands, owed his status as landowner to the considerable dowry of his first wife. Kalkschmidt himself describes his childhood as lonely and "under [the] gloomy stars of parental discord". The birth mother died a few days after his birth. Kalkschmidt grew up with four siblings with their father and stepmother. Despite the domestic situation and the rural seclusion, he developed a strong bond with his homeland during his early childhood on the estate, which would shape him throughout his life.

School years

After attending the village school, Kalkschmidt switched to the high school in Memel because of his good performance. His life began far away from the farm and the family environment in changing pensions, because the place was too far away to be able to drive home every day. For two years he was trained in Latin and French, among other things, until a deliberately set fire destroyed his parents' farm building and its uninsured contents. The financial emergency forced the inquisitive pupil to attend a community school with six classes, but later he was able to switch back to a grammar school in Tilsit.

Years of apprenticeship

At the age of 14, Eugen Kalkschmidt became a half-orphan through the suicide of his stepmother. The father was arrested on suspicion of arson, and the family's debt led to the property being foreclosed. Thanks to the financial help of his grandmother, Kalkschmidt was able to complete two more years of training. He decided against the higher education he had longed for and inevitably accepted a vocational training. Despite the father's acquittal, the property and the sum insured now went to his uncle, which meant that Kalkschmidt was denied agricultural training. He left home and went to Berlin to begin commercial training.

The subsequent professional career was changeable. An apprenticeship as an accountant was followed by a position at a colonial and delicatessen shop. He resigned both. After a short helping hand in a coffin magazine, Kalkschmidt began his third apprenticeship in a paper shop with a printing and bookbinding shop near Insterburg , where he stayed with his sister. The closeness to books was very appealing to him, but at the age of 15 he no longer wanted to “learn how to do business, but how to collect spiritual treasures”. He returned to Tilsit for his fourth apprenticeship. There he tried desperately for self-study during his training in the "Lohauß book, art and music store", but he had neither time nor money. The book trade and the associated journal reading circles appealed to him more than the previous apprenticeships, but Kalkschmidt still missed a sufficient satisfaction of his need for knowledge.

The bankruptcy of his trainer led him on to the Lohberg bookstore in Schmalkalden in Thuringia . Approx. In 1892, at the age of 17, he became a member of the commercial association, which enabled him to get some education and to get to know the country and its people as part of excursions into nature. After two years in Thuringia, he successfully completed his fifth, but not the last, apprenticeship position. Approx. In 1894, after completing his military training, Eugen Kalkschmidt left his new home in Munich for Hamburg. This is followed by a position as a second assistant in a book and nautical chart store, which he quit after two years in order to do an academic training as an actor.

military service

At the age of 18, Eugen Kalkschmidt began his military service. For fear of the Prussian soldiery , which is notorious for mistreatment , he reported before his seniority so that he could choose his own garrison and troops. The time for self-study had the highest priority and so the decision was made against the field service, to do the service in the district command in Munich . After six weeks of service, he began his two-year clerkship in the officer's office, which he completed in 1894 with the degree of non-commissioned officer .

Theatrical life

During his time in the Bavarian military , Kalkschmidt had a "higher longing [for] the realm of art". The theater with its “magic scenery” attracted him in particular. In 1896, Kalkschmidt began acting at the “ Royal Conservatory for Music and Theater ” in Dresden and thus also his seventh apprenticeship. After several guest appearances, u. a. also at the Dresden Residenztheater , he dropped out of drama school prematurely after studying for a year and signed a contract as an “actor with choir engagement” at the city theater in Flensburg . Kalkschmidt, who had also dealt with literature and poetry very intensively, quickly felt that the local theater poetry was too little for him. In the city theater everything seemed "tiring and powerless" to him. For him there were only “schematic characters” and “paper dialogues”. Only after a change to the literary society in Leipzig in January 1898, where he spent three months traveling with the "Ibsen Theater", did this change. He was among academics, expectations were high. Here Kalkschmidt came into contact with literary greats such as u. a. Frank Wedekind , who accompanied the troupe as dramaturgical secretary.

Views in aesthetics and art

The "Arts and Crafts Movement"

The “Arts and Crafts Movement” that began in England around 1890 was the basis of a general art education movement that also spread to Germany. Industrialization and mass production drew a reform movement to improve aesthetics (including in manufacturers of home furnishings), which quickly shifted to a general aesthetic claim. An urge arose for one's own "aesthetic self-improvement" through amateur activities in poetry , art and image production. This movement also influenced Kalkschmidt in his artistic-aesthetic work and in his aesthetic worldview. In addition, the “Arts and Crafts Movement” paves the way for another like-minded reform movement, that of pictorialism : In the pictorialist movement, amateur photography should be set apart from professional photography in its aesthetic demands and established as art. The "Arts and Crafts Movement" and Pictorialism formed the basis for magazines with artistic - or aesthetic - educational work, for which Kalkschmidt worked for a long time as an editor or writer.

General understanding of art

The time in the cultural stronghold of Munich was formative for Eugen Kalkschmidt. Above all, the city was considered the first art center in the empire thanks to the support of the artist by Prince Regent Luitpold . Kalkschmidt's many changing teachings had a specific cause: no activity was "creative" or "original" enough for him. He saw "art as a true oasis of life". Neither the purely aesthetic nor the purely moral was sufficient for him. “The word that morality is a matter of course in art” was, according to him, “spoken from the soul”. He saw aesthetic sensibilities closely linked to education, which is why he tirelessly devoted himself to self-study throughout his life.

theatre

At a young age, Kalkschmidt, like Schiller, viewed the theater as an educational institution, as a moral institution for educating the people. The higher, ideal, which he always tried to strive for, was to be found for him in the theater. However, the teaching methods at the conservatory did not do justice to his aesthetic views. The theater and thus also art seemed to have more of a handcrafted, routine character and not the higher creative element that he ascribed to art. Even during his time as an actor in the service of the "Literary Society" in Leipzig, Kalkschmidt repeatedly came up against the limits of his ideal ideas of theater , later even describing them, measured against reality, as "self-deception".

literature

In addition to theater and museums, Kalkschmidt saw literature as an important source of education, to which he devoted himself from childhood. As a commercial clerk in a bookstore, Kalkschmidt became aware of the incipient modernity in literature very early on , tried to promote it and bring it closer to people. In addition to Schiller's remarks on the aesthetics and education of man, he found the longed-for educational model particularly in the works of Goethe, which developed the theory of striving for a lifetime. In the literary and artistic-aesthetic magazines, which became more and more popular around the turn of the century, he valued not only youth and simplicissimus, but also the art warden as a critical authority in German art life and a source of aesthetic wisdom, even before he worked as an editor for it.

Attitude to aspects of arts education

Following an invitation from Ferdinand Avenarius , Kalkschmidt attended the first art education days in Dresden in September 1901. However, he could not get much positive out of the "art care in school and home". It was true that he cared a lot about the independent pursuit of aesthetic self-improvement, the art education, as it u. a. Avenarius operated in the art warden , however, he saw more as an "aristocratic matter". For Kalkschmidt included art education in this context, a kind of "persuasion", a "Anerziehung" and a "pulling up", making him ultimately to avert the art educational aspects of Kunstwart moved whose aesthetic, however, he still appreciated.

Create

influence

Kalkschmidt's literary and editorial work was strongly influenced by his friend, the writer Carl Meißner , through whom he made the acquaintance of many artistic and literary greats. a. with Ferdinand Avenarius, the editor-in-chief of the Kunstwart . Through the publisher Eugen Diederichs (1867–1930) he also made his first contacts with the publishing world and, through his membership in the Leipzig Circle, with important painters and photographers. Later, through his work at the Kunstwart and the Heimat magazine, the acquaintance of such greats as Thomas Mann (1875–1955), Leopold Weber (1866–1944), Ernst Kreidolf (1863–1956) and Albert Welti (1862–1912) was to enhance his aesthetic, Broaden your literary and art-critical horizons. Also with representatives of the art-photographic movement of Pictorialism, mentioned here u. a. the amateur photographers Fritz Matthies-Masuren (1873–1938), Georg Heinrich Emmerich (1870–1923) and the director of the Hamburger Kunsthalle Alfred Lichtwark (1852–1914), he came into contact both professionally and privately.

Writer vs. journalist

Kalkschmidt's literary work began during his time as an actor in Dresden. Through Carl Meißner, he met Ferdinand Avenarius during the Dresden art summer of 1897, who immediately published Kalkschmidt's little gloss "Against the evocation of actors" in the "lecture hall" of the art warden. On the side he wrote his first articles, mainly theater reviews, which were published in various Flensburg newspapers, among others. a. in the Flensburger Generalanzeiger . At the urging of Carl Meißner, he finally submitted his essay “On Dramatic Art and Theater Schools” to Avenarius, which then attested him “unmistakable literary talent”. Disappointed by the reality of the theater world, he took over the provisional management of the messenger for German literature in Dresden as an editor without any prior knowledge . This was followed by a half-day service as a bicycle action aid for Callwey Verlag in Munich, which u. a. the editorial supervision of the art warden published by Georg Callwey included . Kalkschmidt's work as an editor expanded and at the same time he was also active as a writer.

In 1900, Kalkschmidt visited the world exhibition in Paris because of an article for the Central Photographsheet of the Callwey publishing house . In 1901 he became editor of the bi-monthly publication Heimat (previously: The Messenger for German Literature ) in Berlin . At the same time, Kalkschmidt published articles in various newspapers and magazines, especially under the architectural-aesthetic aspects of interior decoration, and took on the Berlin theater criticism for the art warden . In 1902 he moved to Dresden again to finally join the editorial staff of the Kunstwart . In 1906 his first book “Großstadtgedanken. Collection of suggestions from aesthetic practice ”. After 7 years working at the art warden , Kalkschmidt decided to write. He became a Munich reporter for the Frankfurter Zeitung , wrote books and biographies, most of which deal with art and aesthetic issues, and thus found a connection to the big press and literary work in 1909. Nevertheless, between 1912 and 1923 he worked again as an editor in the magazine Jugend .

the home

The messenger for German literature , renamed Heimat at the beginning of 1900 and then renamed German Heimat at the end of the same year , first appeared in Leipzig in 1897 under the editor and publisher Georg Heinrich Meyer . In 1901 Kalkschmidt took over the post of editor of Meyer's successor, Friedrich Lienhard , after he had previously headed the magazine for Meyer for a time . The magazine contained u. a. literary essays, articles and communications, as well as poems in verse and prose as well as theater reports . Above all, it stood for the ideals of local art , folklore and literature. Kalkschmidt as editor, just like the paper, represented a “healthy” poetry that was tied to the homeland against contemporary urbanized and institutionalized literature. In 1902 he left his German homeland , the last edition of which appeared in 1904 under the editor Ernst Graf zu Reventlow .

Callwey Verlag

The Callwey publishing and printing group, founded in Munich in 1884 by Georg DW Callwey, published mostly practice-oriented journals on painting, photography and architecture around the turn of the century . This included u. a. the painter's newspaper Die Mappe , the Süddeutsche Photographenzeitung for professionals and the photographic Zentralblatt for amateur photographers. As long as it was not yet profitable, the Kunstwart was also financially supported from 1894 and later published all the more successfully. Kalkschmidt's auxiliary work in the publishing house included both his collaboration with Ferdinand Avenarius' Kunstwart , as well as with the two responsible editors of the Photographenblätter, Georg Heinrich Emmerich and Fritz Matthies-Masuren .

The art warden

The art warden was not only valid for Eugen Kalkschmidt as an organ of intellectual counteraction to the philistine bourgeoisie of society at the end of the 19th century. Founded in 1887 by Ferdinand Avenarius (1856–1923) in his own publishing house and with his own financial means, it quickly became the most important discussion forum for aesthetic and artistic topics in art, photography, literature and music at Callwey Verlag. This made him particularly interesting for Kalkschmidt, because he saw the Kunstwart as a magazine for people for whom art was a world and worth living in, not a pastime. The art warden, in close proximity to Kalkschmidt's convictions, combined the aesthetic with the ethical: only the moral artist could create great things. Shortly before the turn of the century, the art warden under Avenarius took an increasingly popular and educational orientation. The people's educational, practical instructions for correct, aesthetic “seeing” were now in the foreground. The aesthetic-theoretical discussion receded and with it Kalkschmidt's engagement, which he ended in 1909. The last edition of the Kunstwart appeared in 1932.

The youth

The Munich illustrated cultural magazine Jugend was published by the publisher of the same name from 1896 to 1940. Georg Hirth (1841–1916) was the publisher and founder . Eugen Kalkschmidt was editor-in-chief from 1912 to 1923. The youth mainly contained short articles that were critical of literature, supplemented by modern colored text illustrations, ornaments and caricatures. Although the technical innovations in photography were also used, Georg Hirth was unsuccessful with his efforts to establish photography as an independent artistic means of expression. Photographic elements were soon only used for female portraits and nudes in their youth . In the spirit of Georg Hirth, the magazine should “do justice to the contemporary movements of the turn of the century in an artistically free manner and represent everything vital and youthful with all freedom and sensual freshness.” The youth also gave its name to the art-historical epoch of “ Art Nouveau ”.

Kalkschmidt and Avenarius

The founder of the Kunstwart , Ferdinand Avenarius, saw it as his task to "educate the Germans to a real ability to enjoy artistic pleasure [and thus to a true humanity in general." Like Kalkschmidt he also regards Goethe as the "greatest aesthetic educator of the Germans" . Kalkschmidt had a very friendly relationship with Avenarius, whom he valued very much for his work and aesthetic sense and adored him as a young man. While Avenarius attached more importance to the practical effect of the art warden in the art- aesthetic education of the Germans, Eugen Kalkschmidt was more important to the aesthetic-theoretical discussion. Avenarius managed all areas of the Kunstwart himself with meticulous editorial work , Kalkschmidt has always been more interested in the writing, the production of art in poetics and aesthetics as well as their critical consideration. In addition, according to his own statement, he did not have enough artistic educational ambition to take part in popular educational practice straight away.

Honors

Kalkschmidt's scientific papers are kept in the Monacensia in Munich. The "Eugen-Kalkschmidt-Weg" is named after him there. For his service in the First World War he was awarded the Cross of Honor for Frontline Fighters, the Order of Military Merit 3rd and 4th Class and the Iron Cross 2nd Class.

Quotes

• About acting and literary creation:

[...] [W] hen I should be starving and starving, then not for the eternally ephemeral - the inadequacy of a semi-art, then I prefer to participate in the creative and spiritual life of literature, poetry and art, in the soaring of ›lasting thoughts‹.

• About the collaboration with Matthies - Masuren in Munich:

Freedom was the watchword, freedom from the coercion of parental home and school, freedom from old tradition, freedom for art as well as for life, but freedom as possible with spirit and grace.

• About the art warden :

There was no such thing in Germany at that time, where the arts were in the lush atmosphere of the parlor [...].

Fate had now led me all over Germany to a port from which I was allowed to test my skills on larger goals.

• From big city thoughts :

It is thoughts, harvested in a contemplative stroll over the most colorful fields of our newly emerging aesthetic culture. Lay thoughts, then, because they lack any rigorous scientific knowledge as well as ultimately the ambition to do so.

Works (selection)

• Big city thoughts. Studies and advice from aesthetic practice. Munich 1906.
• German freedom and German wit. Hamburg 1928.
• German broadcast in the east. Cologne 1936.
• Prussian profiles. Hamburg 1940.
• Moritz von Schwind. The man and the work. Munich 1943.
• From Memelland to Munich. Memories. Hamburg 1948.
• Carl Spitzweg and his world. Munich 1945.
• Biedermeier's happiness and end. Munich 1957.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Familie Batsch eV Association of members of the Batsch family. Accessed on July 25, 2011.
2. ↑ Kalkschmidt, Beate: Vita ( Memento of the original from December 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved July 25, 2011. 
3. ^ Eugen Kalkschmidt: From Memelland to Munich. Memories. Stromverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf 1948, p. 51.
4. ^ Eugen Kalkschmidt: From Memelland to Munich. Memories. Stromverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf 1948, p. 116.
5. ^ ^{A b c} Eugen Kalkschmidt: From Memelland to Munich. Memories. Stromverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf 1948, p. 151.
6. ^ ^{A b c} Eugen Kalkschmidt: From Memelland to Munich. Memories. Stromverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf 1948, p. 191.
7. ↑ Cf. Eugen Kalkschmidt: From Memelland to Munich. Memories. Stromverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf 1948, p. 209.
8. ↑ ^{a b} Cf. Ulrich F. Keller: The Myth of Art Photography: A sociological analysis. In: History of Photography 8. 1984, pp. 249-250.
9. ↑ ^{a b} Cf. Eugen Kalkschmidt: From Memelland to Munich. Memories. Stromverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf 1948, pp. 161–162.
10. ^ Eugen Kalkschmidt: From Memelland to Munich. Memories. Stromverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf 1948, p. 184.
11. ^ Eugen Kalkschmidt: From Memelland to Munich. Memories. Stromverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf 1948, p. 166.
12. ↑ Cf. Eugen Kalkschmidt: From Memelland to Munich. Memories. Stromverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf 1948, p. 130.
13. ↑ Cf. Eugen Kalkschmidt: From Memelland to Munich. Memories. Stromverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf 1948, p. 180.
14. ↑ Cf. Eugen Kalkschmidt: From Memelland to Munich. Memories. Stromverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf 1948, p. 275.
15. ^ ^{A b} Eugen Kalkschmidt: From Memelland to Munich. Memories. Stromverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf 1948, p. 306.
16. ^ Eugen Kalkschmidt: From Memelland to Munich. Memories. Stromverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf 1948, p. 226.
17. ↑ ^{a b} cf. Fritz Schlawe: literary journals. 1885-1910. Metzler, Stuttgart 1965, pp. 90-91.
18. ↑ ^{a b} Cf. Eugen Kalkschmidr: From Memelland to Munich. Memories. Stromverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf 1948, p. 279.
19. ↑ See Fritz Schlawe: Literary Journals. 1885-1910. Metzler, Stuttgart 1965, p. 88.
20. ↑ See Fritz Schlawe: Literary Journals. 1885-1910. Metzler, Stuttgart 1965, pp. 55-56.
21. ↑ Cf. Clelia Segieth: Under the Sign of "Secessionism" - The Beginnings of Munich's "Youth". A contribution to the understanding of art at the turn of the century in Munich. Munich 1994, p. 137.
22. ^ Fritz Schlawe: Literary magazines. 1885-1910. Metzler, Stuttgart 1965, p. 56.
23. ↑ See Jugend - Münchner Illustrierte Wochenschrift für Kunst und Leben - digitally accessed on July 27, 2011.
24. ↑ Herbert Broermann: The art warden in his peculiarity, development and meaning. Callwey, Munich 1934, p. 26.
25. ↑ Cf. Herbert Broermann: The art warden in his peculiarity, development and meaning. Callwey, Munich 1934, p. 27.
26. ↑ Cf. Eugen Kalkschmidr: From Memelland to Munich. Memories. Stromverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf 1948, p. 299.
27. ↑ Sa Eugen Kalkschmidt - Nachlass ( Memento of the original from September 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved July 27, 2011.  
28. ^ Eugen Kalkschmidt: From Memelland to Munich. Memories. Stromverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf 1948, p. 229.
29. ^ Eugen Kalkschmidt: From Memelland to Munich. Memories. Stromverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf 1948, p. 236.
30. ^ Eugen Kalkschmidt: From Memelland to Munich. Memories. Stromverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf 1948, p. 277.
31. ^ Eugen Kalkschmidt: Big City Thoughts. Studies and advice from aesthetic practice. Callwey, Munich 1906, p. 6.

literature

• Herbert Broermann: The art warden in his peculiarity, development and importance. Callwey, Munich 1934.
• Eugen Kalkschmidt: Big city ideas. Studies and advice from aesthetic practice. Callwey, Munich 1906.
• Eugen Kalkschmidt: From Memelland to Munich. Memories. Stromverlag, Munich 1948.
• Ulrich F. Keller: The Myth of Art Photography: A sociological analysis. In: History of Photography. 8, 1984, pp. 249-275.
• Gerhard Kratzsch: Kunstwart and Dürerbund. A contribution to the history of the educated in the age of imperialism. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1969.
• Fritz Schlawe: Literary magazines. 1885-1910. Metzler, Stuttgart 1965.
• Clelia Segieth: Under the sign of “Secessionism”. The beginnings of the Munich “youth”. A contribution to the understanding of art at the turn of the century in Munich. Dissertation. Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. Munich 1994.

Web links

• Literature by and about Eugen Kalkschmidt in the catalog of the German National Library
• Association of members of the Batsch family V.
• Jugend - Munich illustrated weekly for art and life - digital
• Callwey Verlag ( Memento from May 5, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
• Kalkschmidt, Beate: Vita
• Eugen Kalkschmidt: Estate