Strange Beauty – Expressionism and Germany’s Modernisms
21 January 2027 - 25 February 2027
10.45 – 12.45 Thursdays
£86.00 – £428.00
Description
‘Germanness’ and nationalism collided with modern movements and cosmopolitanism in the art of Germany from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. Berlin’s Nationalgalerie, founded in 1861 collected only contemporary art unlike other similar European institutions. It, too, became a site of contested ideas about art and the spirit of nationhood. We will focus on these themes through the work of significant artists and artist collectives emerging in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, notably the officially-celebrated Adolphe von Menzel, the expressionism of the freedom-loving artists of Die Brücke, the under-explored art of Paula Modersohn-Becker and socialist revolutionary Käthe Kollwitz.
“Your last course was inspirational and I feel that my Wednesdays have been surreal! I’ve been transported to a dramatic world which teeters on the edge of reality. I’ve learned a lot but over all you’ve shown me to how to appreciate the “marvellous”. And as Andre Breton would say, “the marvellous is beautiful, anything beautiful is marvellous!” A fabulous few weeks!”
Course Outline
21 Jan 2027 – Caspar David Friedrich, Romantic Visionary: The Founding of Berlin’s Nationalgalerie and its Controversies
The German Romantic movement grew out of a cultural identity crisis prompted by the belief that German artists had missed out on centuries of development. Romantic visionary, Caspar David Friedrich exemplified the bond between nature and the self, expressed through his ‘Sublime’ landscapes. Under the directorship of Hugo von Tschudi from the late 1890s, Friedrich’s paintings re-emerge as a topic of controversy in the life of the Berlin Nationalgalerie.
28 Jan 2027 – Unity and Fragmentation: The Berlin Secession, Adolphe Von Menzel, Max Liebermann and the Coming of Impressionism
In 1898, the highly conservative Association of Berlin Artists Group rejected a seemingly uncontroversial landscape by an avant-garde artist of the time. This final straw catalysed the formation of the Berlin Secession, led by artist Max Liebermann, its first President, and proponent of Impressionism. The enduring, officially celebrated artist Adolphe von Menzel (1815-1905) best known for history and realist paintings, also anticipated the coming of Impressionism.
04 Feb 2027 – The Birth of Expressionism: Die Brücke (1905 – 1913), The Bridge to New Freedoms
Inspired by the writings of Nietzsche, the artist group Die Brücke, The Bridge, was founded in 1905. We will explore the Expressionist art of Germany’s first modernist art collective, centred on Ernest Ludwig Kirchner and artist friends, inspired by their free-living and loving lifestyles in Dresden and the lakes of Moritzburg. Their use of distorted form and violent colour shook the spirit of bourgeois complacency.
11 Feb 2027 – Berlin, Utopian and Dystopian City – Otto Dix, Max Beckmann and the ‘New Objectivity’ (Neue Sachlichkeit)
Kirchner famously painted a series of brilliantly characterised works depicting tensions and unease on the streets of Berlin in the immediate pre-war period. Post-war, during the Weimar years, Expressionism gave way to new realities exemplified by critical modernist Otto Dix, and Max Beckmann’s often enigmatic portraits and narrative paintings.
18 Feb 2027 – Breaking Away: The Art of Paula Modersohn-Becker, Revolutionary Realist Käthe Kollwitz and The State of Women
Starting in the rural backwoods of Worpswede, Lower Saxony, and its ‘rural harmonies’ as a member of an artist colony in the late 1880s to Paris-influenced, radical portraits of mainly female figures, Modersohn-Becker’s art travelled far in her short life. By contrast, Kollwitz’ life, spanning both Wars, remained committed to graphically-portrayed socialist themes, the poverty of the working classes, and the city of Berlin.
25 Feb 2027 – Expressionist Film: ‘The Cabinet of Dr Caligari’, ‘Metropolis’, Expressionisms’s Afterlives
The expressionist cinematic turn was prompted by the prefigured by the proliferation of expressionist language in theatre and set design, and the promotion of expressionist art in all forms by influential Der Sturm magazine. Robert Wiene’s ‘The Cabinet of Dr Caligari’ (1919) was the first to embrace this new visual language. Others followed including Fritz Murnau’s ‘Nosferatu’ and Fritz Lang’s futuristic ‘Metropolis (1926).