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WELCOME TO THE EAST FINCHLEY OPEN ARTISTS OCTOBER NEWSLETTER
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THIS MONTH - EFOA Connections and Peace exhibitions - Berlin in the 1920's - Members News - Winslow Homer - and more
If you are viewing on gmail remember to click 'display images' and 'view entire message' when you reach the bottom.
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ON NOW, OUR NEW EXHIBITION 'CONNECTIONS' AT THE ORIGINAL GALLERY, HORNSEY LIBRARY, N8 9JA
Monday to Friday - 1pm to 6pm, Saturday - 1pm to 5pm, Sunday - 1pm - 4pm
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ALSO ON FOR THE MONTH OF OCTOBER, OUR EXHIBITION 'PEACE' AT THE PHOENIX CINEMA, HIGH ROAD, EAST FINCHLEY, N2 9PJ
Free entry during opening hours - usually from 11am till late
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DEFEAT, HYPERINFLATION AND ART - BERLIN in the 1920’s
MIKE COLES writes:-
The period between the end of World War I and the collapse of Germany's first democracy with the Nazi rise to power in 1933 was one of intense political conflicts, economic upheaval, and exuberant cultural innovation. Berlin, Germany's largest city and capital of the new Weimar Republic, was at the heart of it all.
Berlin is one of my favourite cities. I know it quite well having done a number of projects there. It’s not a pretty city like Rome or Paris and it has extremes of climate. It’s also scarred, if that’s the right word, with the effects of its history. On the other hand, culturally, it has a lot to offer. It’s also the cheapest of the Western European capitals with excellent galleries and museums and a very good public transport system.
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In the first decade of the 20th century Germany was a sophisticated, progressive country, as important as Britain in many areas, (but without the Empire), however, after the German defeat in the First World War the whole country was thrown into economic and political turmoil. Germany was exhausted and, in the end, sued for peace in desperate circumstances. The imminent defeat sparked a revolution, the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the end of the Monarchy, formal surrender to the Allies, and the proclamation of the constitutional Weimar Republic on the 9th November 1918.
To have lost that war, under the leadership of the Kaiser, was not something Germany had even remotely contemplated in 1914, but by 1918, with almost 2.5 million soldiers and civilians dead and over 4 million wounded, the reality dawned: Germany had lost.
During the war prices had doubled, but that was just the start of the country’s economic troubles. The new Weimar government was bound by the Treaty of Versailles, which was designed to ensure that the now defunct ‘Old Germany’ could never wage war on their neighbours again. The treaty’s terms and harsh reparations put the Weimar government under significant financial pressure, such that it was unlikely that the ailing German economy would recover any time soon.
The ambitions of the Weimar Republic – openness and tolerance, underpinned by radical social democracy – created a new and more liberal atmosphere. The constitution guaranteed every German the right to ‘express his opinion freely in word, writing, print, picture or in any other manner,’ and German artists, many of whom had been exposed to modernist movements in France, Italy and America, rushed to find forms that could reflect the tumultuous realities that surrounded them.
By 1923, the looming economic problems came to a head after the government missed a reparations payment. This set off a chain of events that included occupation, hyperinflation, and social unrest. Before the war, the exchange rate was just over four marks to the U.S. dollar. By 1923 the value of the mark was 30 times less. The Weimar government chose to print more money in order to pay the reparation debt. But, despite this, or maybe, because of it, hyperinflation had arrived.
With the economy in meltdown Berlin now experienced an influx of migrants from rural areas seeking a living. It was becoming a melting pot – radical, political, provocative, and with a bourgeoning counterculture. Things couldn’t get any worse, so anything went.
It was fertile ground for intellectuals, artists, and innovators from many fields during this period. The social environment was chaotic, and politics were passionate.
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At the start of the Weimar Republic. German visual art, music, and literature were still strongly influenced by German Expressionism, such as the pre-war Bridge group (‘Brücke’). Expressionism came to the fore around 1905 and lasted until about 1920. It is a term given to a style of painting, music, or drama in which the artist or writer seeks to express the inner world of emotion rather than external reality.
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The Bathers at Moritzburg (1910) by Ernst Kirchner of the 'Brucke' (Bridge) group
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However, pretty soon, a sharp turn was taken towards the Neue Sachlichkeit, (New Objectivity or New Matter-of Factness). New Objectivity was not a strict movement in the sense of having a clear manifesto or set of rules. Artists gravitating towards this aesthetic defined themselves by rejecting the themes of expressionism—romanticism, fantasy, subjectivity, raw emotion and impulse—and focused instead on reality, deliberately depicting the factual. In Berlin there was plenty of reality to focus on.
Into this turmoil came artists Käthe Kollwitz, Otto Dix, Max Beckmann, George Grosz, John Heartfield, Conrad Felixmüller, Christian Schad, and Rudolf Schlichter among others, who all worked in different styles, but shared many themes: the horrors of war, social hypocrisy and moral decadence, the plight of the poor and, eventually, the rise of Nazism.
The multifaceted work and everyday life of people in the big cities, particularly Berlin, were focal points of New Objectivity in all areas of culture, but were expressed particularly succinctly in painting. Above all, George Grosz and Otto Dix represented a left-wing political movement. With their sometimes grotesquely distorted, caricaturing pictures, they sharply criticized the social conditions of the 1920s.
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Prostitution became prevalent in Berlin and other cities left ravaged by World War I. This means of survival for desperate women, and sometimes men, became normalized to a degree in the 1920s. Gay behaviour was also documented among soldiers at the front. Soldiers returning to Berlin at the end of the War had a different attitude towards their own sexual behaviour than they had a few years previously. Prostitution was frowned on by respectable Berliners, but it grew to the point of becoming entrenched in the city's underground economy and culture.
Unsurprisingly, crime in general developed in parallel with prostitution in the city, often beginning as petty thefts linked to the need to survive in the war's aftermath. Berlin eventually acquired a reputation as a hub of drug dealing (cocaine, heroin, tranquilizers) and the black market.
There was in Berlin also an increase in the visibility of the LGBT community, partially due to the leniency of federal censorship. The period marked an influx in lesbian and gay media as publishers took advantage of ambiguously worded censorship laws in the Weimar Constitution. (in 1921, the German Supreme Court ruled that homosexual themes in the press were not necessarily obscene unless erotic in nature).
Berlin’s decadent nightlife was hardly a secret at the time. In fact, the city authorities were proud of the fact that their city was one of the most liberal, tolerant, and indeed, decadent places in the world. They embraced its reputation and, as the decade progressed, the scandalous underground scene became increasingly mainstream, with a major tourism industry growing up around it.
All of this was reflected by Berlin’s artists.
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Metropolis (1927-28) by Otto Dix
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The painter Otto Dix, haunted by his experiences as a machine-gunner during the First World War, channelled his energies into sardonic and often ghoulish depictions of Berlin. The central panel of Dix’s famous triptych Metropolis (1927–28), portrays a jazz club teeming with dancing, glamorous ‘New Women’, but its side panels tell a different story. In one, a wounded veteran stands by, his companion dead on the pavement; in the other a crowd of scantily clad young females streams past, insensible to the suffering that surrounds them. The pen-and-ink caricatures of Georg Grosz are even more unsparing – a rogue’s gallery of plump businessmen, leering prostitutes, corrupt officials and hollow-eyed down-and-outs.
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Artists in Berlin became fused with the city's underground culture as the borders between cabaret and 'legitimate' theatre blurred.
Anita Berber, a dancer, and actress, became notorious throughout the city and beyond for her erotic performances (as well as her cocaine addiction and erratic behaviour).
She was painted by Otto Dix.
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By 1925, some monetary and political stability had been restored, and the Republic enjoyed relative prosperity for the next five years. This period, sometimes known as the Golden Twenties, was characterised by further cultural flourishing, social progress, and a gradual improvement in foreign relations.
Nevertheless, especially on the political right, there remained strong and widespread resentment against the Treaty of Versailles and those who had signed and supported it.
It all came to a fairly abrupt end in October 1929 with the onset of the Great Depression which severely impacted Germany's tenuous economic progress. High unemployment and subsequent social and political unrest led to the collapse of the Weimar government. On 30 January 1933, President Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor to head a new coalition government; Hitler's far-right Nazi Party at that time only held two out of ten cabinet seats, but by the end of March 1933, the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act of 1933 were used in the 'perceived state of emergency' to effectively grant Hitler broad powers to act outside parliamentary control, which he used, and which brought about the swift collapse of democracy at the federal and state level, and the creation of a one-party dictatorship under his leadership.
Avant-garde German artists, considered decadent, were now branded both enemies of the state and a threat to German culture. Many went into exile. Max Beckmann fled to Amsterdam, Max Ernst emigrated to America with the assistance of Peggy Guggenheim. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner committed suicide in Switzerland in 1938, Paul Klee spent his years in exile in Switzerland, (yet was unable to obtain Swiss citizenship because of his status as a 'degenerate artist'). A leading German dealer, Alfred Flechtheim, died penniless in exile in London in 1937. Other artists remained in internal exile. Otto Dix retreated to the countryside to paint unpeopled landscapes in a meticulous style that would not provoke the authorities.
The Weimar period has gone down in history as a period of remarkable artistic energy – a surge of modernist art, music, theatre, design, dance and film, when the constraints of 19th-century manners and mores were torn down, and experimentation of all kinds remade the cultural landscape. For a brief window during the ‘golden 1920s’ and early 30s, while Germany’s political life was in turmoil and the country was being battered by an economic hurricane, the arts had rarely been so vibrant. It is no exaggeration to say that in the Weimar years, Germany was the most exciting place in Europe to be.
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Honourable mention
Throughout the Weimar Republic, the 'New Woman' movement brought new opportunities for women in what was a male dominated society. Realist painters associated with the New Objectivity explored them in a new light - sober, sporty, practical, and functionally dressed. Lotte Laserstein’s 'New Woman' pictures provide an opportunity to revaluate New Objectivity painting, which historically centred on male painters. Laserstein emphasizes the sensuousness of clothing and up-front reality to portray the New Woman as an embodied and empowered subject who negotiated the conditions of Weimar modernity.
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MEMBERS NEWS - CHRISTINE WATSON
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Christine Watson has had her mezzotint Syros Steps selected for the Printmakers Council Exhibition
SURFACE and DEPTH
28th October - 19th November 2022
Mandells Gallery, Elm Hill, Norwich, Norfolk, NR3 1HN
Open Tuesday to Saturdays 10 to 5.00
info@mandellsgallery.co.uk
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THE NATIONAL GALLERY
WINSLOW HOMER: combining political commentary and superb painterly skill
JUDITH DEVONS writes:-
I have recently returned from the Venice Biennale - a huge complex of pavilions showcasing the work of contemporary artists and groups from about 90 countries around the world. It is somewhat overwhelming but also exciting, stimulating and varied - plus this year curated by a women so well over half the entries reflect a female perspective!
I went to the Biennale with my California sister, who is interested in art but has no formal background in practice or theory. At one point, after looking at various installations with stuffed bodies, scary sculptures, surreal dismembered forms, photomontages and films - many with clear messages about colonialism, sexism and racism - she asked me, ‘Can art be both political and also visually aesthetic?
This is a great question at a time when - it seems to me - the starting point of contemporary political art is often the message and not a discerning eye carefully interpreting reality with painterly skill.
Perhaps I am a traditionalist or lack sufficient appreciation of shock and displacement, but back in London, I have just been to see the Winslow Homer exhibition Force of Nature at the National Gallery (on until 8 January 2023), and I have my answer: yes, I am reminded that powerful political commentary can be intertwined with superb painterly skill - in this case from an artist who reached his peak more than a century ago.
Winslow Homer (1836-1910) was largely self-taught as an artist - starting as an illustrator and maturing into a leading American landscape realist who confronted the political and social issues of late 19th century USA and its relations with both Europe and the Caribbean.
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Homer lived through the American Civil War, the abolition of slavery, the so-called Reconstruction, and war with the last colonial European power in the Americas - Spain. There was plenty of material for a political activist observing dramatic conflict and changes in the world around him. Homer captured the essence of it all subtly through art. From watercolour sketches of battle and camp life to oil paintings of cotton pickers and ex-slaves, he created beautifully sensitive and symbolic works that portrayed the pressing issues of his time.
The messages were inescapable but couched in the most beautiful rendering of colour and brushstrokes
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Homer demonstrated a depth of perception and mastery of painterly techniques that I find staggeringly impressive. His realism was objective, true to nature, and emotionally controlled. And the paint application reflects the message. In one painting, for example, a mature woman visits her ex-slaves. They are now free but the layers of stains on their aprons and expressions on their faces echo the impact of the past on their lives.
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In another painting, an ex-soldier has become a farmer, ploughing his fields. Grief has turned to hope: ‘beating swords into ploughshares’. But, as the exhibition caption aptly points out, Homer has included a solitary scythe in his painting, subtly foreshadowing the grim reaper.
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Some of Homer’s paintings depict children playing. Again, in ‘Snap the Whip’, Homer includes a subtle message within his beautifully rendered vignette. Most children are playing harmoniously suggesting a happy future, but one child has fallen (or been pushed), suggesting challenges ahead.
As a mature artist, Homer spent two years in the 1880s based in the English coastal village of Cullercoats, Northumberland. Many of his subjects were working men and women going about their daily work, which the artist imbued with a solidity and heroic quality. Based by the sea, he also painted powerful, dark, restless seascapes.
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It was during this period that he painted what I consider to be the most powerful painting in this exhibition: ‘The Life Line’. Here, a man is trying to save a woman on the brink of drowning at sea. Both are dangling from a hoist, with ropes and waves spanning the canvas. There is so much ambiguity: where is the observer? Who is saving the woman? Where is the boat? The viewer teeters between feelings of danger and safety, rescue and release, and there is even a sensual quality to the limp woman held aloft by the strong hero whose face is covered by a red scarf.
So many of Homer’s paintings work on many levels of possible interpretation. I found that true with the compositions too. I could cover up small areas with my hands and find a smaller complete work within - a total balance of form, light and colour!
I do intend to return to this exhibition for a second viewing - delighted for anyone to join me!
Judith Devons www.judithdevons.com
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Next month - What is Mid Journey and should we be worrying about it?
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ABOUT EAST FINCHLEY OPEN ARTISTS
Find out about us on our website www.eastfinchleyopen.org.uk
There you will find details of all our current members plus photo's of their work and contact details plus information on recent and upcoming exhibitions
MEMBERSHIP: If you are interested in joining East Finchley Open Artists please contact the Membership Secretary at membership@eastfinchleyopen.org.uk
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