Dachau artists' colony

Franz Marc , Moor huts in the Dachauer Moos (1902)

The Dachau artists' colony was formed in the second half of the 19th century. Starting in 1875, in particular, important German painters flocked to the Bavarian city near Munich to be inspired by the people and the landscape in the Dachauer Moos and to settle there for several months or years. Along with Worpswede , Dachau is the most important artist colony in Germany . The place has remained connected to art to this day. For example, in the Dachau picture gallerymany exhibits shown by representatives of the artists' colony. Dachau is a member of the association of European artist colonies “Euro Art”.

style

There was no independent, uniform art form, a "Dachau School"; the stylistic proximity to the "Munich School" was too defining. In addition to the Impressionist landscape painting , Dachau also offered other motifs: old town streets, Dachau traditional costumes, farmers, herds of cattle, beer benches and other - romanticized country life.

Advent of landscape painting

As an expression of a new perspective in painting, which - starting from Barbizon near Paris, which was a point of attraction and example between 1830 and approx. 1870 ( School of Barbizon ) - shaped the European art world in the second half of the 19th century, was under Painted in the open air: Open -air painting , also known as en-plein-air painting , caused crowds of artists and art students to flock to the surroundings of the cities, always looking for scenic motifs. The German painters were also guided by this fashion. Classical models were Dutch landscape painting, under the auspices of the impending impressionism.

Origins of the artist colony (approx. 1800 to 1874)

Carl Spitzweg : The Bookworm (ca.1850)

As early as 1805, a few artists came to the town, for example around 1803 Simon Warnberger , 1825 Wilhelm von Kobell , 1834 Johann Georg von Dillis (gallery director and professor of landscape painting at the Munich Academy), around 1840 Eduard Schleich the Elder , Dietrich Langko and 1850 Carl Spitzweg , who stayed in Dachau for several years. Spitzweg painted his famous picture The Bookworm in Dachau Castle . Spitzweg, which was still little known at the time and which was fond of portraying the petty-bourgeois, contemplative life of old markets and towns, received many ideas for its work in Dachau.

In addition, Heinrich von Zügel came in 1870 and Wilhelm Leibl in 1873 ; Leibl, a Piloty student, was one of the most idiosyncratic and important artists of his time. He lived only a few kilometers southwest of Dachau, in Graßlfing an der Amper (today Olching ), withdrawn and secluded from the world in order to be as close to nature as possible. Evidence for an increased interest of the Munich artist scene in the moss landscape of the Dachau area and the changing atmospheric moods of the landscape in terms of weather and light. For an increasing number of painters, Dachau represented an ideal motif for the increasingly popular landscape painting (also open-air painting ).

In the years between 1840 and 1875 it was primarily landscapers who repeatedly visited the Dachau region because of the atmospheric motifs, but that changed in the 1880s. Now sculptors and graphic artists also found their way to Dachau, the surrounding area.

The artist colony (1875 to 1914)

The first artists settled down and the colony gradually emerged. During this time the number of artists coming to Dachau skyrocketed. In some cases, the city made affordable apartments and workrooms available. After a long development phase, the heyday of the Dachau artists' colony began around 1880. A few dozen studio houses and artist villas still bear witness to this phase.

A first group of artists around Ludwig Dill , Adolf Hölzel and Arthur Langhammer joined forces in 1897 (the exact time is disputed) to form the art school or painting school "Neu-Dachau". Artists also settled in the surrounding towns such as Etzenhausen or Haimhausen. Etzenhausen is still known today for the " long lane " a dirt road from Etzenhausen up to a hill, which opened up a good overview of the landscape and Dachau. In Haimhausen, a separate Haimhausen artists' colony developed , which existed from 1895 to 1972.

In addition, writers followed their painter friends: Ludwig Thoma , Heimito von Doderer and Theodor Heuss .

Hölzel opened a first private painting school, which received much attention and was mainly attended by women, the so-called "painting women", including Ida Kerkovius , Else Freytag-Loringhoven and Paula Wimmer . But among his students there were also such well-known painters as Emil Nolde . The father of the colony, Adolf Hölzl, walked through the landscape with an easel, hat and a young assistant.

Dill, on the other hand, founded the first local artists' association around 1897. Dachau was now known throughout Germany as a painter's colony. Many other artists followed who came to Dachau, including Max Liebermann , Lovis Corinth , Max Slevogt , Ludwig von Herterich , Hermann Linde , Anton von Stadler , Paul Baum , and Heinrich von Zügel .

In a second “wave” of interested artists, Franz Marc , August von Brandis , Hermann Stockmann , Ignatius Taschner , Hans von Hayek , Carl Thiemann , August Pfaltz , Paula Wimmer and Walther Klemm also came from 1900 . Some artist colleagues such as Franz Marc and Lovis Corinth, who worked briefly in Dachau, were bothered by the swarming moss and were looking for peace further afield in Murnau .

“At the beginning of the century, during the summer, a painter's umbrella lights up every fifty meters in the Dachau landscape. At particularly popular spots, you could even stand polona for days until everyone had their turn. Many motifs were painted so often, if not to say disguised, that the farmers or other owners sued for damages. Yes, it even happened that the professors were tired and refused to correct the constantly recurring image. "

- Carl Olof Petersen (1903)

Hölzel's work indicated the climax and end of the great age of landscape painters, open-air painting and landscape impressionism in Dachau. In 1905, Hölzel accepted a call to the academy in Stuttgart. Searching for new forms of expression in theory and practice, he took the first experimental steps towards abstract painting - several years before Wassilij Kandinsky . Their art was created in studios, although Kandinsky himself was artistically concerned with nature in Murnau .

The traditional Dachau artists founded the Dachau District Museum in 1905 and the Picture Gallery in Dachau Castle in 1908 . Unlike in Worpswede, Pont Aven or Skagen , the painters of the Dachau artist colony initially exhibited their paintings mainly on site. As is still the case today, there was a lively exchange between the European artist colonies. People visited each other, took up suggestions and new painting techniques.

After the flowering period

During the First World War , the number of artists on site decreased due to the war, many artists had to enlist for military service. Shortly after the end of the war, as early as 1919, an artists' association with 44 members was established, which is still in existence today. In 1927 an artists' association was founded.

In the period between the wars, Emmi Walther , Ella Iranyi , Carl Olof Petersen and Karl Staudinger lived and worked in Dachau . The Second World War led to a sharp decline in artistic activity.

The landscape as painted and seen by the artists has largely disappeared today, the villa district of the painter professors in the south of the city has been changed, the Dachau Moos has been partially drained and built on.

As a reminiscence of the colony, a " Long Open Doors Night " is organized every September in Dachau by studios, galleries and artist workshops.

Artist path in Dachau

However, the city of Dachau sees itself to this day in a special way connected to the arts and is the residence of numerous painters, graphic artists and sculptors. The city of Dachau has created an artist path to allow visitors to the city to walk in the footsteps of the painters of the artist colony. At 18 stations, steles were set up with the pictures of artists from this approximate position. painted their pictures en plein air . The signposted path is 5.7 km long and can be completed in about 1.15 hours.

Colony painters (selection)

literature

Petra Belli (Red.): Open air painting. The artist place Dachau. Dachau 2002, ISBN 3-93094126-0 .
Norbert Göttler: Buidlmaler, Malweiber and easelibs. A short history of the Dachau artist colony , in: Dachau impressions: literary walk in the Dachau region, Dachau 2003.
Horst Heres (ed.): Dachauer Gemäldegalerie , Museumsverein Dachau 1985, ISBN 978-3926355003 .
Lorenz Josef Reitmeier: Dachau - the famous painter's place, Süddeutscher Verlag, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-7991-6444-8 .
City of Dachau (ed.), Lorenz Josef Reitmeier: Dachau. An artist book. Dachau 1995.
City of Dachau (ed.), Hans-Günther Richardi: Dachauer Zeitgeschichtsführer. Dachau 1998.
Ottilie Thiemann-Stoedtner, Gerhard Hanke : Dachauer painter. The art landscape from 1801–1946 . 2nd Edition. Bayerland publishing house, Dachau 1989, ISBN 3-89251-054-7 .
Wolfgang Till: Artist colony at the gates of the city : the Dachau painting school, in: Munich, the city of art, Munich 2002.
Dachau artists' colony. Flowering from 1880 to 1920 . Atelier in the Bauernhaus, Fischerhude 2013, ISBN 978-3-88132-394-9 , pp. 59–68.