The Abstract Movement in Germany
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What we call abstract art today existed in Germany around 1920 as a part of the general concept of expressionism. In the beginning abstract and concrete were synonymous; later the two notions separated -- concrete and abstract opposed each other. The split showed up in a controversy between Marc and Kandinsky who then couldn't agree on the meaning of abstraction. After 1924 the picture became even more confusing. Men of different nationalities came to Germany and brought their various backgrounds to the meaning of abstraction. Klee was German -- though he was Swiss also. Itten, the first director of the Bauhaus, was Swiss. Kandinsky, as everybody knows was Russian; Feininger (though he lived in Germany from his early years) American; Moholy-Nagy, Hungarian.
One asks oneself. Where are the Germans? And a further question: Why were all these foreigners so much attracted to the abstract efforts in Germany? The answer is obvious: there was one phenomenon in Germany which stood out, namely the 'Bauhaus'. The Bauhaus was recognized by everyone as a unique point of congregation and at the same time as something characteristic of the revolutionary spirit of art in Germany.
There is no room to delve into the importance of the Bauhaus, which aroused the special anger of the Nazis and which later was re-established by Moholy-Nagy as the Institute of Design in the United States. The painter Muche built the first Bauhaus (there were several). He used mathematical and strictly economical forms, proceeding from the 'square'; Muche's ideas had been influenced by the Stijl group in Holland (Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg), and last but not least by the suprematists and the constructivists Gabo and Pevsner. The ideological development of the Bauhaus was complicated. It underwent many changes, and when Gropius took over -- shortly before the arrival of the Nazis -- it had come to a certain decline and possibly to an end. When the Nazi furor prevented the continuation of the Bauhaus, nearly all its members went abroad; among the most important were Moholy-Nagy, Marcel Breuer, Herbert Bayer, Joseph Albers, Max Bill.
If we try to understand the abstract movement in Germany, we have to start with the 'Sturm' (founded by Hervard Walden), a unique center of modern ideas in art. One can say that the impact of the Sturm worked in the direction of what is generally called expressionism, though this concept has various meanings. Expressionists like Marc, Macke, and others and the participants of the association called 'Der Blaue Reiter' (which originated in Munich) were not completely abstract. Many other elements and experiences had to arrive to found the abstract movement in Germany. The expressionist beginnings of abstraction in Germany -- the influence of Marc and Kandinsky -- were always vivid and sometimes the cause for an easy reversal of German abstraction toward expressionist ideas.
Among the leaders of 'pure' abstractionism in Germany were Lothar Schreyer, Willi Baumeister, Erich Buchholz, Max Burcharz, Otto Nebel, Thomas Ring, Johannes Moltzahn, Walter Dexel, Oskar Schlemmer, Oskar Nerlinger, Edmund Kesting, and Otto Freundlich.
The uncertainty of the basic ideology showed itself in the different development of these personalities. It is only today, after several earth-shaking cataclysms, that we are able to understand them. Some -- like Max Bill, Vordemberge-Gildewart, Buchholz -- remained 'pure'. Others deviated, and some became 'heretics'. Outside circumstances in a country like Germany -- where the economic situation was always difficult -- determined the course of personal development. Max Burcharz became a teacher at the Folkwang school for painting; also Georg Muche. Walter Dexel works as a teacher of modern painting in Magdeburg. Kurt Schwitters, of world fame, worked in the pure abstract sense only from 1924 to 1926. His powerful imagination drove him toward dadaism and surrealism.
The closer we study personalities, the more we see that the basic concepts tend to diverge, though everything is kept together under the undefinable term 'abstraction'. Klee, Kandinsky, Feininger, and Schlemmer -- all 'offsprings' of the Bauhaus -- became part and instrument of the world-wide movement against representational art. All of them, in a continuous state of transcendence, had to assert themselves through a certain aggression which would occasionally reflect on the quality of their work. There has never been greater instability than in the German period of' abstract painting; these creative men pierced through a veil of prejudices and conventions to arrive at abstraction, though they differed thoroughly in their approaches, working often through developments that carried them to extremes.
Baumeister, an old Bauhaus follower, showed many different stages. His early murals were influenced by the Stijl. Later the pictures became loose with surrealist suggestions. Schlemmer doesn't seem to be abstract at all, but the structural quality of his work puts him in this category. His deeper concern with man might have caused Schlemmer to become interested in the theatre, where he planned and executed the 'Triadisches Ballett' (ballet triadique).
In the beginning of the movement there were hardly any sculptural developments. Buchholz alone showed three-dimensional structures, using colored glass planes and other materials. In 1922 examples of constructivist sculpture arrived from Russia. And from the north came movies made by Viking Eggeling, who later met Hans Richter in Berlin. Both continued to use the film medium for the projection of their abstract ideas.
After the catastrophe of Hitlerism many new men came to the fore. Theodor Werner and Ernst Wilhelm Nay acquired recognition in Germany and Europe. Both have also exhibited in the United States. There are too many to mention them all. They seemed to be kept together more by a certain confusion than by any real clarity in regard to the principle of abstraction. When they theorized, they talked about the tension between the circle and the square, and the fact that everybody has to make his choice individually. Expressionism of the early days seemed to be left far behind. The deeper meaning (so dear to the German mind) sometimes is found in the philosophy of Sartre, sometimes in the tenets of Karl Jung in Zürich -- who elaborated on symbolism, once brought to light by Freud's dream interpretation. The problem of light and shadow was transformed into a problem of tension between color and form values -ideas that the suprematists had first talked about. The vagueness of terms sometimes make the abstractionists look like alchemists or adepts of some secret cult.
I have said that not everybody can be mentioned, but I don't like to forget Werner Gilles and Alexander Camarro. Both were men of stature, both lyrical and detached, as if they withdrew from northern coldness and hardness. In their half-representational work, depth has a spiritual quality. Figures put against a background assume the meaning of forms that look for an integration into a world not yet born. This is true too in the work of Hans Jaenisch, whose pictures press forward to an abstract world of non-entity, though they are in a sense representational. This fact is most clearly seen in his reliefs and sculpture. In Meistermann's work you can easily detect religious influences. There is another man of importance: Troekes. He derived a part of his great skill from Klee but soon found his own way.
These are the names and external data of the abstract movement in Germany. Much more could be said, especially about the deeper psychological motivations and the ensuing trend. Some personalities, such as Kirchner, seemed to show symbolically the conceptual part of this movement. Kirchner committed suicide in Switzerland. We don't really know what drove him to this act, but it is obvious that his extremely sensitive personality not only conflicted with the outside world but also with problems presented by his work. If abstraction, as has often been said, had much to do with science or at least was influenced by science, Kirchner certainly was antagonistic to it. His identification with the universe, his truly poetic abilities, could never have led him to find a solution like that of the Stijl artists. What spoke to Mondrian was his own calculation. What talked to Kirchner were the mountains of Switzerland and the poetry of' its scenery. He felt at one with creation but not as one with the kind of* logical positivism in art that leads to architecture. Kirchner was finally overcome by a feeling of having been lost in the world ( Heidegger), and terminated his life in the shack where he lived, high in the mountains.
A psychology of nothingness sometimes seems to have been the basis for the abstract movement in Germany. The Germans have always suffered from weltschmerz and it is not incidental that existentialism was founded by a German -- Heidegger. But at the end of Kirchner's life, he became interested in hieroglyphics. Had he followed that symbolizing process, it might have led him to a lifesustaining form of sublimation.
The relation between personality development and abstract art grew clearer the more the participants were convinced of their newness and revolutionary importance. At this point the German abstract movement became a real part of the general revolutionary movement in art. The dadaists -- active in Germany under the leadership of Richard Huelsenbeck -- through aggression and destruction of the old had put great stress on personality- development. The surrealists favored the power of the transcending unconscious. After many detours and deviations, the German abstractionists came back to their original belief that all art is expressive; but what sort of expressiveness, or rather what sort of expression? There was no simple answer to this question. Klee, in many developments following his different moods -- sometimes approaching representation, sometimes 'pure' forms, but always showing the depth and quiet of an emotional fulfillment -- provides a good example. He was German at its best, philosophical, mostly gay, and never desperate -- only very serious shortly before his death. He possessed to a great degree the expressiveness that does not need to coincide with the official concept of expressionism.
The state of balance found in Klee's work is shown also by others who draw their inspiration not only from esthetics but also from life itself. The German abstractionists are always close to life. Music, architecture, and painting are seen as a blending process which is constantly fed by the changing background of the political and economic scene.
I wish to mention two more men of importance -- Hans Hartung and Fritz Winter. Hartung carried his fervor into life, as the dadaists had been demanding. From the Nazi terror he fled to France, and became a fighter in the French underground. Today, Hartung is one of the outstanding painters of the French abstract school. Fritz Winter, although he started from Klee, has followed his own direction. With Hartung as much as with Winter, life is just behind the canvas. Human joy and human suffering mount and sink with the power of the line.
The underlying human aim, expressed in organic forms, is now equally apparent in architecture. Hugo Haering and Hans Sharoon follow their own ways rather than the 'pure mathematical' forms of Mies van der Rohe and Gropius. The latter migrated to the United States where their style has been greatly appreciated.
As we come to an end -- here are a few names of the very young: Rolf Cavael, Manfred Bluth, Bernhard Schultze, Fred Thieber, and Wilhelm Inkamp.
The historians of the modern movement in Germany have written exhaustive studies. Will Grohmann and Werner Haftmann have traced German abstraction from the early times of the Blaue Reiter down to the sometimes hysterical and aggressive reaction that resulted from the division of Germany, as decreed by the victors of World War II. In Germany we have put our ears to the ground to hear the Sibyls talking about the future. But this is a movement which contains present and future in one; therefore even the greatest prophet -- if asked about the coming years -- might hide his wisdom behind a smile.
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