Teacher Florian Bätschi with school children
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| Teacher Florian Bätschi with school children |
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| Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , 1936 |
| Wood carving |
| 83 × 120.5 cm |
| Kirchner Museum , Davos |
Teachers Florian Bätschi with school children is the title of a colorful framed wooden reliefs of the German artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner that the Davos represents teachers Florian Bätschi with four school children. It was made in 1936 as a supraport for the entrance portal of the newly built school building in Davos-Frauenkirch and is Kirchner's only publicly commissioned work. The original relief is now part of the collection of the Kirchner Museum in Davos.
description
The relief consists of several pine -Blöcken, which were subsequently joined together. It has a rectangular format with the dimensions 83 × 120.5 cm and a depth of 12.5 cm. In the Kirchner catalog raisonné it bears the number 1936/03.
The wood relief shows five people face to face , of whom only the central figure of the teacher Florian Bätschi is known by name, who taught at the elementary school in Davos-Frauenkirch in the 1930s. In the center of the relief, the mustached teacher can be seen standing with an open red book. Two schoolchildren and two schoolgirls sit at desks on either side, from under which clothes and legs peek out, while only the upper body of the teacher can be seen. Next to the teacher sits the student who Kirchner describes as “the counting girl”, a blond girl with a headband, who counts something with her fingers with her eyes closed, next to her on the outside “the pointing girl” with darker, plaited hair red clothes. To the right of the teacher sits a pointing blond boy in blue clothes, next to him is the dark-haired “writing boy” in red. The hands of the pointing pupils protrude slightly above the rectangular shape of the relief.
After the carving was completed, Kirchner painted the relief in color. The symmetrical distribution of the colors is striking: the red of the book, which attracts the eye in the center of the picture, is repeated on the outside in the students' clothes; The blue color and the hair colors of the students are also arranged symmetrically. This color symmetry contributes to a harmonious overall effect of the work of art.
history
In preparation for his work, Kirchner created numerous pencil, chalk or ink sketches and watercolors as drafts of the entire portal, the planned relief and individual figures, some of which still differed significantly from the finished work. The artist arranged the people in different positions to one another; in some cases, more standing pupil figures were designed as lateral closures. During this phase, Kirchner exchanged his handwritten correspondence with the German art collector Carl Hagemann , to whom he sent not only a description, but also drafts of the relief in two letters.
A 20.5 cm high, 16.5 cm wide and 8.5 cm deep model of the school portal made of painted wood by Kirchner in 1936 (catalog raisonné 1936/02) shows six instead of four school children. It is now in the Bündner Kunstmuseum in Chur after a donation from Professor Otto Tschumi .
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner himself took several photographs of the relief. He photographed it before and after painting, individual figures and finally the work of art in situ after it was installed above the entrance portal of the school. Some glass and cellulose negatives and original prints of Kirchner's own photographs of the work as well as many of his drafts are part of the collection of the Kirchner Museum Davos.
The finished relief was installed as a supraport above the main entrance of the newly built school building in Frauenkirch. It was supported laterally by thick wooden beams and was framed with two more beams at the top and bottom. On the wooden beam directly below the relief there was initially a three-line inscription of white letters - not designed by Kirchner - which was later removed at an unknown time. It read:
"BUILT BY THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE FOR THE YOUTH IN THE CRISIS YEAR 1936"
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was invited to the opening ceremony of the new school building on October 18, 1936. In a letter to the art collector Carl Hagemann , he described the celebration as follows:
“Yesterday was the inauguration of the new school building. A party with singing, dancing and talking, and afterwards a pub that I haven't seen or even participated in for decades. Everyone ... sat in the 'Post', the Small Council, the Landammann, the farmers, all united and friendly. ... The relief is pleasing and has been mentioned a lot in the speeches. "
For a long time it was a tradition in Frauenkirch that at the beginning of a new school year, the girls and boys depicted on the wooden relief were given new names by them according to their similarities with the school beginners.
The relief remained at the school in Frauenkirch until 1980, when it was replaced by a copy . In 1982 the original was transferred to the collection of the Kirchner Museum Davos as a gift from the Davos community . It is one of the regularly exhibited works there.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Wolfgang Henze: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's sculpture. Monograph with catalog raisonné . Henze & Ketterer, Wichtrach / Bern 2002, ISBN 978-3-906128-14-6 , p. 395.
- ↑ Kirchner's letters to Carl Hagemann dated May 21 and July 10, 1936
- ↑ a b Erhard Göpel: The restored Kirchner house in Davos . In: Das Werk: Architektur und Kunst = L'oeuvre: architecture et art , Volume 51, 1964, Issue 12, e-periodica.ch, accessed on November 7, 2016, .pdf, (p. 462, Fig. 15, with photo).
- ^ Letter from Ernst Ludwig Kirchner to Carl Hagemann, October 19, 1936