Rudolf Szyszkowitz (painter)

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Rudolf Szyszkowitz

Rudolf Szyszkowitz (born April 27, 1905 in St. Martin near Villach , † January 6, 1976 in Graz ) was an Austrian painter and graphic artist.

Life

Rudolf Szyszkowitz was the second son of of Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia originating forestry engineer and kuk , born Rudolf officials Szyszkowitz and Theresia Gold born in Carinthia . He first grew up in Zara , where his father was employed as the head of the torrent control section . He received artistic stamps from his grandfather, the Salzburg painter Josef Gold . The family lived in Graz since the outbreak of war in 1914. From 1921 he attended the sculpture department at the Graz School of Applied Arts under the direction of Wilhelm Gösser .

In 1925 he went to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he attended the general painting school under the direction of Karl Sterrer ; eight semesters later he entered the master school for painting with Karl Sterrer and Rudolf Bacher . He maintained lasting friendships with the young painters Werner Berg , Leopold Birstinger , Max Weiler , Albin Stranig, Paul Müller and the sculptors Alexander Silveri and Walter Ritter. In 1933 he finished his university studies with honors and academic prizes. From 1933 to 1935 he lived as a freelance artist in Vienna. In 1935 he received the recognition award for the Austrian State Prize. The result was that, at the suggestion of the architects Clemens Holzmeister and Rudolf Hofer, he was appointed to the State Master School for Applied Arts (later School of Applied Arts) in Graz to set up a master class for painting there. Szyszkowitz was given to understand that this master class would be the basis for an art college planned in Graz. This started his more than 30 years teaching activity. In 1936 he joined the Graz Secession, founded in 1923, and was a long-term member alongside Alfred Wickenburg , Fritz Silberbauer and Wilhelm Thöny .

In 1937 he married Elisabeth Maier. With her he had three sons; 1938 Peter (painter), 1944 Michael (architect), 1946 Johannes (painter).

In the first years of the war, Szyszkowitz was exempt from military service because it was indispensable for school. After an inspection by the Reich Minister of Culture, Bernhard Rust , the class had to be closed because it was incompatible with the view of German art at the time . Szyszkowitz was then drafted into the Wehrmacht in Lienz in East Tyrol in 1943 .

In 1945 the request came from Vienna as to whether he would accept a professorship at the Academy of Fine Arts , but at that time he still believed that the arts and crafts school would develop into a university and therefore stayed with his family in Graz. In 1951 he founded the Styrian Werkbund with Peter Richard Oberhuber and other artists. In 1954 Szyszkowitz became a member of the Vienna Secession . From 1961 to 1967 Szyszkowitz was president of the Werkbund.

In 1964, at the request of Oskar Kokoschka, he was appointed his successor at the International Summer Academy for Fine Arts in Salzburg , where he headed the seminar for figural painting for nine years - newly appointed every year. In 1967 Szyszkowitz withdrew from the public service in order to devote himself exclusively to his artistic work. In 1976 he died of stomach cancer. He is buried in the St. Leonhard Cemetery in Graz .

Rudolf Szyszkowitz and Neuland

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The Bund Neuland was founded in 1919 under the spiritual leadership of the priests Michael Pfliegler and Karl Rudolf from the German Youth Movement .

The efforts of the German youth movement were z. For example: the right to self-determination, personal responsibility, the right to shape one's own life, to defend against traditional traditions and against authorities in general, to rebel against the tutelage of adults and to question the state's self-evident claim to leadership. One wanted to fight against the "suppressive system of learning" and the "overbred intellectualism". The connection to the down-to-earth rural culture was sought. A late romantic enthusiasm for the German Middle Ages drove the youth to the countryside, to nature, to search for the meaning of life there.

The Neuland covenant, on the other hand, placed itself under God's guidance. The youth should be led to themselves in a spirit of faith renewal. Going beyond the pure ideas of self-liberation, missionary activity was sought. The "townspeople" were to be brought back to the "true faith" from which they had lost due to war, revolution and "proletarianization". The ambitious goal was "the kingdom of a comprehensive Christian order". However, one was also critical of the official church, which was still “encrusted in Byzantine splendor” and “in need of reform”. The church should become real communion; the worship service should unite the celebrants and the believers, not separate them. The "gap between sacred and profane" had to be bridged. Going back to the sources of early Christianity , the aim was to live the words of the Sermon on the Mount , to shake the unreflected religiosity of many habitual churchgoers and thus achieve the “awakening of the Church in souls” ( Romano Guardini ).

The target image of the youth became the “new man”, who emerges from unity with the Church on the one hand and unity with nature on the other. Therefore the second main idea was the closeness to nature. The " urbanization of life ", the "asphalt culture " was condemned , which for the " Bündische " - as they called themselves - was clear evidence of a cultural crisis.

Rudolf Szyszkowitz joined Neuland in 1920, at the age of 15, whose ideals shaped him decisively from then on. He later wrote himself:

The youth kingdom was ours. An infinite abundance of views, tasks and building ideas (construction of all kinds) stood before us. In this realm (inner realm) I was allowed to contribute with the means, the expected registers of the art of my work. For the renewal of the world, for the establishment of the broken empire, the inner and the outer.

But not only was the federal government of great importance for Szyszkowitz, but also the other way around for the federal government. Szyszkowitz succeeded in converting the ideas directly into pictures with his early works and a symbolism, some of which was specially created for Neuland. What is now referred to as "Neulandkunst" was influenced by his work and developed out of his spirit. From the very beginning he illustrated the youth magazine “Jungvolk” and the songbook “Fahrend Volk”. As strange as these early illustrations may seem today, they have to be understood in terms of time and conviction. The coarse, coarse faces, the often clumsy-looking, sometimes over-proportioned limbs, and the entire, very simplified representation, can in part be traced back to the influence of his teacher Wilhelm Gösser.

The influence of Karl Sterrer in Szyszkowitz 'work can also be clearly seen in this early period; both formally and seriously, in avoiding any superficiality.

With his art, Szyszkowitz also changed the taste in art of his friends, who, as a recovery from the "rough" reality - in which much was perceived as "unsuitable" and "desolate" - rather had access to late Nazarene or neoclassical representations, in which a lovelier, more pleasant one Fantasy world was to be found.

He demanded an examination of reality as it is and how it should be. The otherworldly flight from the world (as can be found in the Nazarene representations) was opposed to an art related to the realization of faith in this world. Severe seriousness, simplicity and reduction in form, color and composition, as well as monumentality, are formal signs of this attitude.

The religious subjects were expanded, reinterpreted and brought into the present - projected. At the time, this was seen as a provocation by some. Szyszkowitz's painting “Nativity Scene” in particular arouses great public outrage. "Scandal", "Abomination", "Caricature of the most terrible kind" or "Anger for the believing people" were some of the qualifications quoted verbatim from letters of complaint. The Holy Family would be portrayed as too "proletarian"; this “proletarian woman” could never be the Virgin Mary; it would be a “hollowing out and impoverishment of the lovely, beautiful nativity scene”.

Anton Böhm said in an article at the time that this clearly shows that the representatives of the majority of the church people did not want to see the historical salvation event represented on the level of their real everyday life, and did not consider that it only made sense, only could have had a redeeming effect if it took place on this human level of reality.

Although Szyszkowitz's conception of images has changed significantly over the years, he has always remained true to his ideals in art too. Throughout his life, art was religion for him. For him, artistic creation was equated with prayer. In a lecture he once said that Van Gogh's shoes are more suitable as an altarpiece than a bad picture with a religious theme, because the trace of God can be seen in everyday life for those who have eyes to see. One could also pray a pear, and he could also imagine a pure landscape as an altarpiece.

To call Rudolf Szyszkowitz a representative of Neulandkunst would not be correct insofar as there was no Neulandkunst in the sense. Rather, it was the case that the young Szyszkowitz, impressed by the will to reform many like-minded people, developed his own visual language for the key issues of this new movement. The intention was to illustrate elementary beliefs in an equally elementary, no-frills form, "unkitscht" and unadorned, and to transfer them into real life, thus giving the spirit of the Neuland movement a visual identity.

He kept some of these ideas in his further work on sacred subjects. However, he quickly developed from this phase, often referred to as Neulandkunst, to a completely independent form of expression, which gives his figural compositions an unmistakable style.

Even if Szyszkowitz was a deeply religious person throughout his life, he cannot be classified as a religious painter. His concept of spirituality goes far beyond religious conventions and dogmas. The love for nature, for creation and the associated clinging to the object in his painting testify to this, despite the sometimes high degree of abstraction that can be found in his landscapes and portraits.

Szyszkowitz once said, “I came to Christianity from nature. I observe and paint - the gospel snaps shut afterwards ”. By this he meant that his art did not come from the Christian faith, but his faith from art, the passionate acceptance of the environment.

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Alongside Alfred Wickenburg and Wilhelm Thöny, Rudolf Szyszkowitz was the most important representative of Styrian modernism.

Rudolf Szyszkowitz's life's work is extensive and varied. Figurative compositions, portraits and a large number of landscape pictures are complemented by a rich graphic and graphic work. Glass windows,  secco , sgraffito and relief work, some mosaics, tapestries and ceramic paintings complete his oeuvre.

The early work was clearly shaped by Karl Sterrer's painting school, and three artists whom he held in high regard, namely Albin Egger-Lienz , Lovis Corinth and Käthe Kollwitz , influenced his artistic path. But the spiritual ideals of the Franciscan Neulandbund also came into play in his early works. The experience of nature as an original, divine creation was a central concern of the youth movement. This enthusiasm for nature is conveyed by the numerous landscape paintings that take their place among the best of Austrian Expressionism from the interwar period.

Szyszkowitz saw art as a mediation between the transcendental realm of the divine and the sensual and material of the human being. Social and religious themes are the main content of his figural compositions at that time. It is about people in their emotional and existential relationship. In doing so, he concentrated on the characters involved; the background remains neutral. The dark, broken coloring underlines this thematic concern. The oil paintings, in particular, exude a certain astringency in their simplicity and strict composition. This attitude applies equally to his graphic work. From 1926 onwards, prints also became an important means of expression for Szyszkowitz.

From around 1933 he loosened the brushwork and his painting style became more expressionistic. The etchings express this intended statement particularly clearly through the design reduction. What is achieved in painting through the impasto structure of the brushstrokes, he shows in the graphic through bundles of lines and dense hatching layers.

During this time, Szyszkowitz celebrated his first major artistic successes, which in 1935 brought him the recognition prize for the “Great Austrian State Prize” for the painting “Martha-Maria”.

In 1935, his appointment to the Graz School of Applied Arts marked a turning point in his life. His charismatic ability to pass on to young people is the basis for success in this profession of theoretical occupation. In the following years, drawings and especially landscapes dominated his work.

While Szyszkowitz had mainly painted landscapes in the war years, a period of reorientation began in 1947, during which he again increasingly occupied himself with figural compositions and portraits. Broad, strong contours, which he often applied directly to the canvas with a tube of paint, enclose the shapes. Sometimes he also scratches these lines with a knife or a spatula into the still wet paint. The plasticity disappears more and more, the figures appear flat and almost transparent, combined with an increasing luminosity of the colors.

The International Modern trod after the Second World War on the path to abstraction . In contrast, Szyszkowitz takes a clear stand for the recognizability of the natural model, but builds his compositions from geometrical, abstract elements based on the formal achievements of classical modernism . In landscape painting, too, which was inspired by a lot of traveling, the forms are increasingly abstracted.

This time can be described as the second high point of his successes; This is evidenced by numerous invitations to international exhibitions, the award of the gold medal at the “International Biennale for Contemporary Church Art” in Salzburg in 1965 for the painting “Mariae Himmelfahrt” and a series of public commissions. In addition, Szyszkowitz succeeded Oskar Kokoschka in the master class for painting at the International Summer Academy for Fine Arts in Salzburg.

At the age of 50, Rudolf Szyszkowitz received his first large glass window order in 1956: the west windows of the Don Bosco Church in Vienna, followed by a number of important orders for glass windows for sacred rooms and crossroads throughout Austria. From this point on, stained glass gained great importance for him , it supports his image conception, newly acquired in the 1950s, to underline the use of bright, luminous, direct color tones in his pictures through the luminosity of the colors through the daylight. The orderly structure that he strived for in his later work, through strong contour lines, is also ideally implemented in the glass windows thanks to the technically necessary lead webs and retaining structures.

In the last few years he has created works that can definitely be described as monumental; not because of their size, but because of a clearly noticeable unity in the image structure. It is noticeable in these later pictures that the dominance of the line structures is decreasing again and that larger areas become effective. In his last painting, “Rest on the Flight”, Szyszkowitz revisited a central theme of his work, the mother-child relationship. The great human issues of protection and the need for security are explained here in terms of content.

Picture gallery

  • Self-portrait, 1930, oil / canvas

  • Man, 1935, drypoint

  • Girls, 1936, oil / canvas

  • Late summer landscape, 1946/49, oil / canvas

  • Stained glass window St. Rupert (Rupertikirche Hohenrain)

  • Stained glass window Hahn (Rupertikirche Hohenrain)

  • Harbor - Ancona, 1965, oil / canvas

  • White Ship, 1970, watercolor

  • Minister of Education Theodor Piffl-Perčević , 1971, oil / canvas

  • from The Wise Virgins , 1975, concrete glass windows

  • Baptistery in Laßnitzhöhe

Awards

Exhibitions

  • 1928/29 Seckau , Szyszkowitz and Stranig monasteries
  • 1932 Joanneum Graz , Rudolf Szyszkowitz
  • 1933 Vienna Secession
  • 1935 Künstlerhaus Vienna
  • 1939 Galerie Würthle, Vienna, Rudolf Szyszkowitz
  • 1947 Galerie Welz, Vienna, Szyszkowitz, Fronius, Wickenburg
  • 1949 Neue Galerie Graz , Rudolf Szyszkowitz, paintings and graphics
  • 1951 Galerie Moser Graz, Rudolf Szyszkowitz
  • 1950 Venice Biennale
  • 1952 Künstlerhaus Graz (opening)
  • 1954 Upper Austrian State Museum , Linz, Szyszkowitz, Wickenburg, Silberbauer
  • 1955 Ljubljana 1st Exposition Internationale de Gravure
  • 1955 Biennale , São Paulo
  • 1957 Tokyo, Biennale Internationale de Gravure
  • 1957 Joanneum Graz, Rudolf Szyszkowitz
  • 1962 Galerie Bevijl, Linz, Rudolf Szyszkowitz
  • 1968 Neue Galerie Graz , Rudolf Szyszkowitz, paintings and graphics
  • 1968 Gallery for Contemporary Art, Hamburg, Rudolf Szyszkowitz
  • 1969 Galerie Schnoor, Bremen, Rudolf Szyszkowitz
  • 1971 Salzburg residence, Szyszkowitz, Osterider
  • 1971 Hatzendorf, Szyszkowitz, Silveri
  • 1984 City Museum Graz , Rudolf Szyszkowitz, The graphic work
  • 1984 Albertina Vienna , Rudolf Szyszkowitz, watercolors, drawings, prints
  • 1990 Cathedral and Diocesan Museum Vienna , Rudolf Szyszkowitz, From the Monsignore Otto Mauer collection
  • 1999 Lorli Ritschl Foundation, Graz, Rudolf Szyszkowitz, The Portraits
  • 2002 Canons donate Vorau , Rudolf Szyszkowitz, From the religious work
  • 2005 Neue Galerie Graz, Rudolf Szyszkowitz, 1995–2005 (retrospective)
  • 2009 Salzburg Museum , Neue Residenz, Rudolf Szyszkowitz - Between tradition and renewal

literature

  • Wilfried Skreiner: Rudolf Szyszkowitz. Verlag Styria, 1977, ISBN 3-222-10971-0 .
  • Rudolf Szyszkowitz, Walter Koschatzky: Landscapes 1930–1975. Österreichischer Kunst und Kulturverlag, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-85437-110-1 .
  • Georg Szyszkowitz: The other Rudolf Szyszkowitz. Manu Media Verlag, 2002, ISBN 3-902020-15-6 .
  • Gudrun Danzer, Christa Steinle (eds.): Rudolf Szyszkowitz. 1905-1976. Verlag Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2006, ISBN 3-205-77398-5 .

Web links

Commons : Rudolf Szyszkowitz  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilfried Skreiner: Rudolf Szyszkowitz . Styria, Graz 1977, ISBN 3-222-10971-0 , pp. 201 .
  2. ^ Anton Böhm: Neuland . Ed .: Bund Neuland. No. 8/3 , 1931.
  3. ^ Anton Böhm: Journal Neuland . Ed .: Bund Neuland. tape 8/13 , 1931.
  4. ^ Georg Szyszkowitz: The other Rudolf Szyszkowitz . Manu Media Verlag, Graz 2002, ISBN 3-902020-15-6 , p. 30 .
  5. ^ Georg Szyszkowitz: The other Rudolf Szyszkowitz . Manu Media Verlag, Graz 2002, ISBN 3-902020-15-6 , p. 82 .
  6. ^ Quote from Wilfried Skreiner.
  7. ↑ Rudolf Szyszkowitz (1905–1976) - Between Tradition and Renewal . Salzburg Museum website, accessed on March 10, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Szyszkowitz, Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian painter and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH April 27, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Martin near Villach
DATE OF DEATH January 6, 1976
Place of death Graz