Letteratura artistica: Francesco Mazzaferro. Jan Verkade, Cennino Cennini and the Quest for Spiritual Art in the Mid of Wolrl War I

Francesco Mazzaferro

Jan Verkade, Cennino Cennini and the Quest for Spiritual Art in the Mid of World War I
Part Two

[Original version April 2014 - new version April 2019]

Go back to Part One

Fig. 7) Postcard on Beuronese Art at the 1905 Vienna Secession Exhibition

(copyright André M. Winter, published with his authorization)

Symbolism and Synthesism, from Gauguin to the Nabis

As already mentioned, Jan Verkade wrote, in his preface to Cennino’s translation: “The new direction of painting will be a spiritual one”. Speaking of himself, Paul Sérusier and Maurice Denis, a few years later he added, at page 228 of his 1920 memories: “We were the apostles of Symbolism, Synthetism and Traditionalism”. And Annette Kehrbaum lists the common formal stylist elements of the three, referring to the use of lines, colours and composition. The line serves the purpose of the intentional ‘deformation’ (a concept already mentioned above by Baudelaire) through clear contours; the colours are radically simplified; the composition combines elements of real and unreal (see Paul Gaugain’s The Vision after the Sermon).

Let us see first how Paul Sérusier explained the key concepts in his 1921 work “ABC de la Peinture – Correspondance”, owned by this library in a 1956 edition. His 1888 painting ‘The talisman’ is considered the prototype of syntethism: “The Nature is the ensemble of goods which are captured by our own senses. In the impossibility to invent forms and colours, we will make use of those which are provided by our eyesight. If his art were reduced to imitate – reproducing them on a screen – perceived images, the painter would simply produce a mechanical act, to which none of the superior faculties of a human being would contribute: this would be the impression, of which note is taken without adding anything, a non-intelligent work. The nature, if intended like this, is not painting any more. Let us in fact analyse the formation of a visual sensation. A human being normally builds up with two eyes, of which each transmits an image to the brain, and these images are different. It is necessary to choose one and destroy the other. Beyond it, our mind builds up – deducting it from the other two ones – a third picture, which also contains the localisation in space, or a three-dimensional picture.

Given the flat form of the painting, it becomes necessary to represent this three-dimensional picture or to destroy it. In both cases, a simplification of the image will permit us to put it down in a flat surface: therefore a new modification of the picture, an intentional modification, in view of the adaptation. The sensation which the object gives us evokes previously acquired notions, which are conserved by memory. The most important is the concept of the object, which is the result of a generalisation. After having recognised and named the object, our mind works: it makes use of the experiences previously provided by the other senses: form, situation in the space, weight, movement or rest, usefulness, etc. Personal feelings cumulate with these data: love or repulsion (beauty or ugliness). To all these factors which modify the image are to be added the psychological and physiological state of the subject, which may be variable at every instant (sensitivity). Or these coefficients have acted on what has been perceived to the point to transform it into a mental image. We are very far from the original visual image which has nothing but a subdued role”. This mental image is the synthesis, which has to be inspired to universal style rules, valid through history and across cultures, which have respect proportion and golden ratio. An entire chapter is devoted by Paul Sérusier to mathematical equations. He considered this formalised mathematical concept of art as his main contribution to art history.

Jan Verkade used the same language – in 1914-1916 – to comment Cennino Cennini on drawing (footnote 1, page 21) and to make of him a predecessor of contemporary synthetic art. "Nature drawings of the old masters – in particular the primitives – follow always a style, while the drawings of moderns rarely do it. One of the main reasons for this striking appearance is that those painters – in their art work – knew how to combine the information which they captured from objects with the impression of the appearance at a given moment. They never reproduced simply the current picture of things, but always the synthesis of the comprehensive perceptions, and therefore – when drawing nature – they saw it more objective than we do. They approached the nature with full respect, as something perfect, which has its real existence and form outside them, and this reverence originated from their deepest religious sense. In general, reverence, morality, pureness and shame belong to the heart on the artist; at the same time, personality and naivety, grace and dignity in the faces of their fellow human beings belong to the most important conditions, to produce a great art. Otherwise the artist gets lost in his own interior, where the artist will remember only earthy and sloppy figures.”

In his 1920 memories, Verkade commented on Paris art in 1891. “In painting, Gaugain hated the slavish depiction of nature and took – already at the time when I met him – a certain distance from impressionism. If he indeed started from sensual perceptions, he taught however that the natural impression must be combined with the aesthetic recognition, which shall choose, ordinate, simplify and summarize. He meant that the painter cannot rest, until he has not given again to light the delivery (in the form of a visual decoration, to the joy of all those who see it) which is produced by his mind in a coalition with the reality. A double birth would be therefore at the origin of the art piece: a birth in mind and a material birth. The latter can however can be successfully created only through the application of the eternal laws of art representation, which permit us to mediate between our experience and those of others. And if Gauguin insisted on the logical structure of the composition, on the harmonic distribution of hell and dark coloured spots, on the simplification of forms and relations to reach a strong, intensive outline effect (to which the inhibition of the contrast between light and shadow would contribute), he did it because he could show that he knew the most important expression means of painting, and had been learning diligently from painters of all ages”. (p. 63-64)

In conclusion, Anna-Maria Von Bonsdorff wrote: “The synthetist artist aimed to synthetise three features: first, the outward appearance of natural forms, second the artist’s feelings about their subjects, third, the purity of the aesthetic consideration of lines, colour and form so that colours directly affected the senses. (p. 68)”.

It is again Aurier, in his above mentioned article on Gaugain and symbolism, to explain us how this translates in spiritual terms. “An art piece is the translation – in a special and natural language – of a residual spiritual given – of a valuable value – which is as a minimum a fragment of the spirituality of the artist, and as a maximum the entire essential spirituality of different objective beings. The complete art piece is therefore a new being, one could say absolutely a living being, because it has a soul to animate it, which is the synthesis of two souls, the soul of the artist and the soul of the nature.”

Jan Verkade - From rejection of chocolate to nourishment of the spirit

Time has come to frame the theoretical discussions on aesthetics – mentioned above – in the biography of Jan Verkade, from his departure from the Netherlands until his belonging in the Beuron Benedictine monastery of Beuron, in South-Western Germany.

Jan Verkade was born in Northern Holland in 1868, from a protestant Mennonite family. He was the son of an industrialist, whose company (http://www.verkade.nl/) still exists (it is well known for producing chocolate, cakes and biscuits). The father, Ericus Gerhardus Verkade, established it on 2 May 1886. The twin brother of Jan took over. This is the family tree: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verkade_(family).

Fig. 8) Jan Rinke, Advertisment for Verkade's biscuits (ca. 1900)

Jan Verkade did not like the perspective of entering into the family business, and abandoned the commerce school for art. Perhaps for this reason, he wanted to depart from the Netherlands, and did it into direction of Paris in 1891, the capital of art in Europe. He wanted to accelerate his life’s steps and break many taboos for the Dutch society of that time. An overwhelming series of events, inextricably linked to religion and art, followed. He made his acquaintance with Paul Sérusier (only a few hours after having reached Paris) and a few days later with Paul Gauguin and Maurice Denis. He became a member of the Nabis. The religious vocation became visible already in Paris, during his visits to the Louvre (for him art was possible only with religion) and the Notre-Dame Cathedral. After Gauguin left Paris, he moved to Brittany in 1892, where he converted to Catholicism (he had never really embraced Mennonism). After some months in Brittany, he visited Italy, together with the Danish friend and painter Mogens Ballin (who also converted from Protestantism to Catholicism in Florence, in those days). They visited the Franciscan monastery of Fiesole, where he got passionate for monastery life and Trecento painting. In the meantime, the father made him clear he could not finance any more his peregrine life between France, Italy and Germany; he responded that he had decided to be a religious painter and to take the vows. He stayed a few months in Fiesole, where some Franciscan monks told him about the Beuronese art. He wrote from Florence a letter to Peter (Desiderius) Lenz, met him already in 1893 and in 1894 (only three years after having left the Netherlands) entered as novice in Beuron, where he turned his name into Willibrord.

From that moment on, his entire life will develop in the Beuron monastery, but not necessarily among its walls. In fact, Jan Verkade travelled a lot to perform his art pieces in other monasteries (we already recalled Cassino, where he worked until 1905), but also – as we will see – for study purposes and as an ambassador of Beuronese art in Europe.

The Beuronese Art

Peter Lenz, alias Father Desiderius Lenz (the addressee of Jan Verkade’s letter from Florence) was a Benedictine monk who had created in 1868 the Beuronese Art School (originating from the Beuron monastery). Let us him elucidate his art (in Verkade’s memories), explaining the origin of that art movement. Many motives are common to those of French symbolism.

“I very much regretted that modern art had lost direction and surrendered to naturalism, becoming simply a variable of individual preferences. For many years I had confronted myself, completely helpless, with the nature and its own continuously occurrences, until I finally came to the conclusion that a simple awkward copying of the nature will never lead to the quality of the old world. Therefore, I tried to understand better the art of creation of antiques. The works of old Christian and byzantine art – as well as those of Giotto – had taught me that geometry and separation are the main factors in the exercise of arts. However, I missed with them the conscious and intentional use of these imperative means. Old Christians and byzantine artists made use of measuring and separating apparently only due to a debilitated old tradition and Giotto simply made use of his own feelings. Old Greek masters, to the contrary, seemed to have used precise rules on measuring and separating. Which were these rules? (…) in particular the study of figures on Greek vases permitted me to make progress. Through the study of vase figures I finally arrived to the monumental work of Lepsius on old Egyptian temples. When I saw this work with great emotion, it looked like as I had seen those art pieces since ever. Finally, for the first time my innate feeling for number and symmetry, order and piece found full satisfaction. There I found religiosity as I understand it: an amazing immersion in my own self, and in the depth of eternity.” (p. 203)

In 1871 Lenz elaborated a canon of human proportions, which reveals some communality with constructivism and abstraction, and made of it the basis of the Beuron art. Lenz kept it secret to the external world, but it showed to Verkade, Sérusier and Denis in 1893. It did not mention it in his own work on Aesthetics of 1898, which – as mentioned above – was translated into French by Sérusier and Denis in 1904. However, the interest of the Nabis painters for his work convinced him to finally publish the canon.

Jan Verkade explained in the second volume of his memories, published in 1931, that he conceived the Beuronese art as a ‘style in strict sense’. He makes reference to Romano Guardini (1885–1968), a German-Italian theologian and philosopher, close to Martin Heidegger and one of the fathers of the Liturgical Movement. Both Guardini and Heidegger visited very often Beuron. Guardini differentiated between ‘style in general sense’, ‘style in strict sense’ and ‘schema’. The style in general sense is the expression of the creative capacity of a personality (specific and individual), and implies that specific personal elements get a general importance. To the contrary, the style in strict sense “is created when what is individual recedes behind what is general; when what is accidental – depending upon time and location – (…) up to a certain degree is superseded by what is necessary and is valid for any time, location and person; if the simple reality - which is always concrete and individual – is reshaped in a way that what is typical, what is generally valuable and what is generally meaningful come to the front” (Verkade, 1931, p. 69). A schema is the consequence of an excessive stylisation, based on abstract concepts and rules. Quoting Guardini, Verkade writes: “A real style maintains also in its strictest forms the convincing force of a grown expression”.

Fig. 9) Postcard on Beuronese Art at the 1905 Vienna Secession Exhibition

(copyright André M. Winter, published with his authorization)

Verkade’s definition of typical is not “typical” in sense of “individual”, but to the contrary of “Grundtyp”, rather “fundamental typical features”. “Without fundamental typical features there is no great art, and even not a small one. These fundamental typical features are not created ‘by themselves’ and are never generated by the skilfulness of a single artist. Rather, they are traditional features, which receive from each their specific expression. They would however be neither beautiful nor transmissible, if they were not based on simple mass ratios. […] Observation and experience have taught me that in painting – not only in a technical sense, but also in an aesthetic one – much depends upon on which degree of perfection (…) a normalised form [Normalgestalt – note of the translator: the same term used by Gestalt psychologists] is able to provide expression to the things which are represented by the artist [and] are matured in his phantasy (…). All great masters, Giotto as well as Fra Angelico, Piero della Francesca, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Rafael, Dürer and Rubens had their normalised forms, which they knew by heart and used them to play. That this was not otherwise in antiquity is shown by every Egyptian, Greek or Roman work”. (p.79)

The aim of Beuronese art is to be ‘monumental’, characterised by “simplicity, non-differentiation and unity”. “All in all, the conditions to achieve a ‘style in strict sense’ seem to me the following ones: a deep respect for the divine in itself and the creation. Intuitive capacity to shape. Sense of style. Sense for what is necessary and what is general. A spiritual technique of creation (aesthetic geometry). A trained hand. And in particular also the immense fortune to meet the divine in the beautiful, even celestial human figure. The social background for a great style is a solid political system [note of the translator: this is written during the Weimar republic, at a time of deep instability]. While the blossoming of a great, monumental art depends by the combination of fortunate conditions, it has always been ingrained in a strongly managed polity – in which fear of God, tight discipline and order reigned – even if the highest blossom takes place in times, in which signs of decadence become already visible.” (pp.74-75)

The affinity between art and religion, collective style and firm discipline is most probably Jan Verkade’s ultimate interest in Cennino’s Book of the Art, a handbook addressed to artists aiming at a monumental art and a style in strict sense, to use his terminology.

Beuron as European cultural centre

In addition to art, four facts testify that Beuron was indeed a very rich cultural environment. First, the Archabbey hosts still today the largest monastic library of Germany, with 400 thousands volumes, established in the 1920s. Second, Beuron was in those years one of the originating centres of the Liturgical Movement which – starting from the Benedictines in Germany – aimed at refocusing liturgy towards some past values (including, for instance, the importance of Gregorian music and of sacred musical chorales in general). Third, philosophers of major importance like Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) and Max Scheler (1874- 1928) were frequently visiting Beuron. Fourth, Beuron hosted some of the religious leaders of the Christian resistance to Nazism: the Archabbot Raphael Walzer (1888-1966) created a circle of opponents, until he was forced to emigrate in France in 1935. Some of the group members were eventually executed by the Nazis. Among them, the most known personality was Edith Stein (1891 –1942), alias St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, one of the patron saints of Europe, who formed herself religiously in Beuron between 1927 and 1933. She stayed there fifteen times; on Beuron she wrote: “I considered it as the atrium of the heavens”. Edith Stein was a Jewish converted nun, active as philosopher and publicist, who died later on in Auschwitz. Jan Verkade published in 1931 the second volume of his memories. It is unconceivable they did not meet, since – as so-called Gastpater (Host-father) of Beuron – Verkade was in charge of admitting in the monastery all visitors. Unfortunately, these contacts with personalities of such an importance for the history of Europe occurred at a time which is not anymore covered by his memories.

The Beuronese Art in Europe and Jan Verkade as its ambassador

To many readers, several of the facts reported so far may be new. Spiritualism, synthesism, Beuronese art are not among the prevailing icons in art history, today. Discussions on Jan Verkade, Paul Sérusier and Maurice Denis belong to a restrict group of specialists, are not part of standard manuals of history of art, and certainly are nor common among the larger public.

And yet, for several decades, Jan Verkade had a considerable success with his two volumes of memories, quoted several times above, which were originally drafted in Dutch and translated into German, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Czech and Polish. The life of the artist-monk at the search of a synthesis between religion and art was a bestseller for the European between the two World Wars, for a public also probably at the search of some spiritual relief in extremely difficult years. The second volume is concluded by a one-page afterword, explaining that – while the author had intentionally abstained from referring to the economic and political crisis of those years - he was well aware of people’s daily anxiety and concerns.

When he wrote Cennino’s translation in 1914-1916, Jan Verkade was since a decade the intermediary between this rich monastery world and the art community outside. He had travelled, spreading Beuronese art among others in Prague, Cassino, Vienna, Munich, Paris, Jerusalem and again Vienna (twice). He had maintained contacts with painters of the Nabis (not only Denis and Sérusier, but also Émile Bernard and Armand Seguin) and brought them in contact with Peter Lenz. Among his friends, he could count on artists, like the painter Alexej von Jawlensky (1864 –1941) in Munich and the architect Jože Plečnik (1872-1957) in Vienna , and art and literature critics, like Julius Meier-Graefe (1867 –1935) in Germany and Hermann Bahr (1863-1934) in Vienna.

Fig. 10) Postcard on Beuronese Art at the 1905 Vienna Secession Exhibtion

(copyright André M. Winter, published with his authoritazion)

Let us consider the complex question on which follow-up the aesthetic maturation of Jan Verkade’s art (starting from Gauguin’s interpretation of symbolism via the Nabis – in particular Paul Sérusier and Maurice Denis – up to the Beuronese art) had for art of his time. We will consider first – necessarily briefly – the general question on whether certain aspects of Beuronese art (synthetism, role of geometric forms and mathematical rules, canon, tendency to abstraction) are at the origin of other art movements, like cubism. We will look afterwards at Jan Verkade’s fortune in Germany, France, Italy and Austria-Hungary.

The Beuronese Art and Cubism

The main scholar on the impact of Beuronese art on avant-garde movements is Peter Brooke. He studied the writings on aesthetics of Peter Lenz, as well as their impact on the cubist movement, and in particular on Gino Severini and Albert Gleizes. In an afterword on “Peter Lenz and the Twentieth Century” (published in London, 2002), Brooke recalls that Paul Sérusier spoke of himself as the father of Cubism, making reference to his “dogmatic principles” on aesthetics, based on geometry and arithmetic. As already mentioned, Sérusier had been influenced – on his hand – by Peter Lenz theory on “elementary geometrical forms – square, triangle, circle; the ‘root rectangles’; the ‘Golden Section’”.

“Neither Séruzier nor Lenz – continued Brooke - are yet prepared to detach themselves from a representational subject matter, but they argued that, rather than being copied from external appearances, the subject should be built from a base that is essentially abstract. […] The perspective mechanism is regarded with great suspicion as an obstacle to the expression of this ‘aesthetic geometry”. The painting should, so far as possible, be flat.” These themes, which Lenz had already elaborated in the 1870s, are very close to the heart of the cubists.

Fig. 11) Postcard on Beuronese Art at the 1905 Vienna Secession Exhibition

(copyright André M. Winter, published with his authoritazion)

Brooke studied the impact of these ideas on two cubist artists, who were both very strongly influenced by spiritual feelings. One is Gino Severini (1883 - 1966), the most classic of cubist artists, who held a long-life correspondence with the theologian Jacques Maritain (see Radin). The other one is the theorist of cubism, Albert Gleizes (1881 – 1953), who had interests in theology, knew the work of Verkade and the theories of Lenz. Brooke translated the theoretical works of both painters (see Severini). Both disagreed with many aspects of Lenz’s theories. But also knew them, quoted them in their writing and acknowledged they had value for cubism.

In Germany, during his stay in Beuron, Jan Verkade continued to have contacts with prevailing art movements of his time, like expressionism, cubism and new objectivity. This does not mean he shared their views. To the contrary, in a conversation dated 1923 with the theologian and friend Father Peter Lippert, he spoke of them as pathology. Certainly, from an aesthetic point of view, expressionists in particular were oriented to a form of individualistic realism which was opposed to the style-based symbolism which Verkade practiced as an artist, both in the Nabis as well as in Beuron.

Beuron and Germany (via Verkade)

Verkade came into contact with all these art schools during a long stay in Munich in 1906-1908, where he was for study purposes. The memories do not clarify exactly what those study purposes were. They speak of the period in Munich as a second “Sturm-und-Drang phase of his life”. What is meant here is that Verkade repeated in Munich the extreme intense phase of artistic contacts and production as in Paris and Brittany in 1891-1892. At that time, Munich was one of the capitals of modern art, and many streams of work (first of all, the Blue Rider group) had a religious and spiritual motivation.

And yet the expression “Sturm und Drang”, if expresses the frenetic exchanges with other art schools in Munich, does not have a positive inference for Verkade. Perhaps, he felt that this period had not been appropriate for a monk (see below the information we receive from Jawlensky’s memories); perhaps he felt himself rejected and not understood in Munich. It is however a fact that what could have been a unique occasion of dialogue between spiritual painters of different schools only very partially materialised.

Strangely, Verkade’s memories give us the sense of a very unfortunate time for him: on the one hand, he provides us very limited information about the (rich) art life in the town, on the other hand he tells that this time coincided for him with a creative crisis, as it became evident he felt that was not able anymore to produce good quality ‘traditional’ painting any more.

Verkade refers to his contacts with Hugo Troendle (1882-1955), a secessionist German painter who moved later on to Paris, where he worked with Sérusier and Denis. Verkade also tells us about his admiration for a German painter of the previous century, Hans Marées (1837-1887), stating that this was the first German painter who ever captured his attention and approval.

The memories also do not contain any substantial information on his friendship and intellectual relationship with the Russian painter Jawlensky. He met him during his Munich stay; he painted in the same workshop with him one year long as from 1907 and taught him the principle of synthetic art. Furthermore, he exchanged with him correspondence for the following thirty years. For Jawlensky, who would enter in 1911 the Blue Rider group (with Kandinsky, Macke, Marc und Klee), this was an important encounter.

The collection of aphorisms, letters and memories by Alexej Jawlenky edited by Maria Passato offers more information about what happened in Munich. The memories were dictated by Jawlensky in a clinic, as he was already sick, in 1937. He wrote: “During an exhibition held on the same year [1906] in the Kunstverein of Munich I met Father Willibrord Verkade of the Beuron Monastery. He was a good painter, an interesting and very cultivated person. He came to visit me every day in my atelier, where we worked together long time, from spring to autumn. He painted still life paintings. His style was highly studied and harmonic, but did not have the power which my painting expressed. My friend wanted to tame exactly that power. This notwithstanding, he was enthusiast of my colourist language, even if we continued to discuss on the previous issue. In the following years he spoke in some books about his life and art experience. In his book “Der Antrieb ins Vollkommene“ of 1931 he described the birth of our friendship and our following encounters. In my atelier Willibrord painted also some wonderful naked figures, and when he took the vows he informed his Father Superior about their existence. As penance, he was forced to travel to Jerusalem to paint a church. He was prohibited to shave; when – one year after his travel to Jerusalem – he came to see me, he had a long and full beard. Unfortunately, we found only thirty minutes to meet, and since then we never met again”.

Fig. 12) Postcard on Beuronese Art at the 1905 Vienna Secession Exhibition

(copyright André M. Winter, published with his authoritazion)

One year later, in 1938, Jawlensky wrote to Verkade a letter on proportions and spiritualism in art: "For some years I have painted these variations, and then I understood that it was necessary to identify a form for the visage, for I understood that great art should be painted only with religious feelings. And such a feeling I could bring it only in the human face. I understood that the artist must say with his art – through forms and colours – what of him is divine. Therefore, the art piece is a visible God, and art is ‚aspiration to God’“.

In 1911, Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) wrote in Munich his essay entitled “Concerning the Spiritual in Art”, published the following year. Kandinsky – as co-founder of the Blue Rider group - was in permanent and very close contact with Jawlensky. Was Jawlensky’s previous acquaintance with Verkade in 1906-1908 at the origin of the interest of the Bluer Rider group for spirituality? Or did the interaction with the Russian Orthodox world of these Munich-based painters enhance the spiritualist interest of Jan Verkade? It is difficult to say. There is no reference to Kandinsky in Verkade’s memories. Conversely, there is no direct reference to synthetism and the Nabis, nor to Beuronese art in Kandinsky’s writing, which was translated in several languages and became one of the manifestos of abstract art. Most probably, Verkade and Kandinsky never met, as Verkade left Munich (Spring 1908) exactly when Kandinsky moved from the French Riviera to the Bavarian village of Murnau, close to Munich.

Anyway, reading Kandinski’s manifesto reveals that a few common elements exist: the focus on spiritualism, the role of religion, the role of geometric forms in the composition, the importance of lines and colours in the composition, a reference to pure and eternal art (“which is constant among all people, nations and ages”) and the search for a ‘monumental art’. But the main messages are very different: “Every cultural period” writes the Russian painter, almost implicitly rejecting Beuronese art “creates art of its own, which can never be repeated again. An effort to revive art-principles of the past, at best, can only result in works of art resembling a still-born child” […] “The artist should have a message to convey: mere mastery of form should not be his goal, but rather the adaptation of form to inner contentment.”

Other German reactions

Admirers of the Beuronese Art in Germany, like the art critic and Jesuit anti-modernist Josef Kreitmaier, took the view that the Beuronese art was radically incompatible with any other contemporaneous form of art, and raised the expectations that new art styles would have developed in the future from Beuron only, setting the foundations for a new sacred art, based on the inevitable evolution of Peter Lenz’s aesthetic doctrine. They firm rejected any dialogue with any other art direction, including those having an explicit or implicit religious background.

Bernd Feiler explains that – immediately after World War I – several art movements with a Christian spiritual identity came to light (besides the already mentioned Blue Rider) in Munich. These movements were motivated by a desire to ensure a renewal of religiosity in art (in parallel to similar, above mentioned, movements to renew the liturgy). The Catholic Church did not understand how important it would have been – for the development of sacred art – to support these reform movements, rather than keeping them at arm’s length. Also against them, local religious hierarchies tried to promote a new ‘monumental art’ based on frescos, whose artists (Johannes Becker-Gundahl, Martin Feuerstein, Gebhard Fugel, Franz Reiter, Josef Eberz or Josef Bergmann) are today almost forgotten, even among specialists.

All in all, with the benefits of insight it is clear that choice for isolation of the official Church did not pay off. In Roger Lipsey’s 600-page monograph on “The Spiritual in Twentieth Century’s Art”, the Beuronese art is not quoted a single time.

Beuron and France (via Verkade)

The Beuronese art’s fortune was relatively strong in France, where – as very extensively studied by Annegret Kehrbaum – Maurice Denis and Paul Sérusier interpreted the Beuronese Art as a symbolist movement, and until 1906-1907 also their art production seemed to be influenced by Lenz and Verkade. They saw the linear and flat representation of figures as a form of “synthèse” in Gaugain’s terms. Elements of similarity included: the use of as ‘directly significant figures’, the practice of a two-dimensional perspective, the reduced use of colours, the interest for old primitive art as “art cérébral pur”, the prominence of decoration, the idea of a universal harmony, of general mathematical rules applicable to art across time and regions, the idea of a renewal of sacred art. The article “Notes on religious painting” by Maurice Denis (published in Denis, 1912) is dedicated to Jan Verkade, and offers an extensive discussion about parallelism between old Christian art (in particular byzantine art) and French symbolism. Jan Verkade replied that Beuronese Art was inspired to old Egyptian and Greek art, not Byzantine one. As already mentioned, Lenz’s book on Aesthetics was translated in French by Paul Sérusier, with an introduction by Maurice Denis (the latter was also published separately in Denis, 1912).

Contacts between Denis and Sérusier on the one hand and the Beuron school on the other became less frequent in the 1910s, when important differences became evident. Annegret Kehrbaum offers a very extensive and meticulous of the gradual distancing between the two painters and the Beuronese school. In particular Denis and Sérusier observed how the Beuronese environment became increasingly characterised by a collective bias limiting the capacity for artists (including Jan Verkade) to express their individual personality. As from the second part of the second decade of the century, Maurice Denis also changed his stylist orientation, moving to a more classical, Cezanne-influenced style.

Outside the couple Sérusier-Denis, there is limited evidence of the fortune of the Beuronese art in France. As explained below, the country was split in two camps on religion. Paul Gauguin – Jan Verkade’s master - composed in 1897-1898 a manuscript (entitled “The modern spirit and the catholicism”) which stressed the need for spiritualism, but was substantially anti-clerical. Several Nabi painters (with the exception perhaps of Pissarro and Anquetin) considered Lenz’s aesthetics with substantial indifference.

Beuron and Italy (the assessment by Giuseppe Prezzolini and an article of future Pope Paul VI)

The main reactions to Beuronese art in Italy are of a different origin. On the one hand Giuseppe Prezzolini (who met directly Verkade) gave an interesting assessment of Beuronese art in 1908. Twenty years later (1929), Giovanni Battista Montini – the future Paul VI - gave a stylistic analysis which testifies the attention of the catholic world towards the Beuronese experience (vivified in Italy by the Montecassino frescos) and – more generally – the particular interest of Papa Montini for every form of art expression. Let us examine briefly both texts.

Giuseppe Prezzolini (1882 –1982) was one of the editors of the anti-positivist philosophical and literary journal Leonardo, founded in 1903. Verkade also met the other editor of Leonardo, Giovanni Papini (1881 -1956). Verkade made acquaintance with Prezzolini in 1905, and the latter visited Beuron in 1906. Two years later, Prezzolini authored an essay on Verkade, distinguishing between two aspects, theory and art. On theory he was dismissive; on art he gave a very supportive assessment.

Fig. 13) Giuseppe Prezzolini, The theory and art of Beuron
in Vita d'arte (April 1908)

On theory, he basically made three points. First, he noted that – with the participation in the 1905 Secession exhibition held in Vienna, see below - the Beuronese art had shown a capacity of dialogue with very diverse art cultures. Second, he stated that – while Lenz had learned painting with the Nazarenes – his school had to be assessed in its own right, as it radically rejected any heritage from Gothic art (differently from secessionist artists). Third, he considered the aesthetic premises of the art movement – based on the use of ‘typical features’ as opposed to ‘individual features’– as radically wrong, since “an art which is mechanically searching from the type, and not the individual, ends up being mechanic. The painters’ vision – as every artistic expression – does nothing but extracting the individual from the chaos in which the man with his senses lives; and often circumscribes it in an eternal form (as a status of Phidias, a verse of Dante, a motive by Wagner), but in the unique and individual form which separates and characterizes from the remainder of the world. (…If art consisted in the research of a type, once we would have found the type of a boy or an adult, the type of a tree or a cloud, the type of a wave or of a fall, we would simply need to repeat it always, like a print machine repeats printing. Yes, this would be mechanic art.)”

On art, Prezzolini says that – notwithstanding efforts to strive for an unitarian style – paintings are different, revealing both the personality and the taste of the individuals, as well the evolution between the first works in Beuron and works in Cassino, Prague and Stuttgart. Prezzolini judges the works as “results of art visions”, not of Lenz’s canon. “The artists believed in the theory because the theory mixed itself up with their artistic will and easily followed their specific imagination”. Among all artists, he prefers Father Krug. In conclusions, he takes the view that “the opus of the Beuronese School is catholic theology in painting”. He rejects the view of the Beuronese art as a primitive art: “It is a very sophisticated, highly elaborated. An art, I would dare to say, like those which are created at the end of a civilization, not among those which are the first expression of a new one.”

Prezzolini tried to introduce Verkade to other representatives of the Italian culture, like Ardengo Soffici (1879 –1964). He described him as a friend of Maurice Denis and the representative of an innovative, non-conventional sacred art. As to be expected, this failed: Soffici was anti-clerical (see also: Margherita d'Ayala Valva). See the 600 page monograph of Mariano Apa, for a comprehensive assessment of the fortune of the Beuronese Art in Italy. The recent restoration of the crypt in Cassino (2013) has also raised new interest for this art in Italy.

Exactly in a 1929 article, Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI (1897-1978), referred to the Beuronese art as “one of the best defines streams of contemporary sacred art, and by now one of the most spread ones”. Its popularity had increased worldwide with the works in the Montecassino Abbey, where Verkade had been active 2 years long. The abbey was in large part destroyed during World War II, but the crypt – frescoed by Beuronese artists including Verkade - has been recently restored and re-opened, 100 years after its inauguration by Pope Piux X in 1913.

Montini’s non uncritical article towards Beuron is certainly worth reading. He stressed the connection between the attempt by Beuronese artist to the renewal of Christian art and the revitalisation of Christian liturgy, the spiritual sense of the direct reference of Beuronese artists to old art (including old Christian one, but above all references from Old Egypt and Greece), the symbolic importance of the absence of any connection to gothic and renaissance (the art of sin), and the iconic value of images based on numbers and mathematical proportions. On the critical side, he interrogated himself on the risk of transforming some of those icons into idols.

Beuron and Austria-Hungary (via Verkade)

Equally intense were relations of Beuronese artists in Austria-Hungary. For the sake of simplicity he had omitted to explain – we are doing it now – that the Beuronese Benedictines had been forced to move to Prague, at the St. Gabriel’s abbey, during the years of the so-called Kulturkampf (the "culture struggle" of Bismarck against the catholic Church in the 1870s). Therefore, the first impact of Beuronese art outside Germany materialised in Austria-Hungary, well before Jan Verkade’s novitiate. St. Gabriel remained one of the centres of the propagation of Beuronese art in Central Europe (Verkade was active there as from 1896).

Very probably due to the presence of the Beuronese artists as St.Gabriel in Prague – and certainly the one of Verkade – this art style impacted the Prague and Vienna Secessionist movements. Gustav Klimt is reported to have read the Aesthetics manifesto by Lenz, and appreciated it. The Beuronese school exposed in Vienna at the 1905 Secession Exhibition (Verkade organised the room dedicated to Beuron, where also new paintings were exposed). Later on, Verkade worked at Karmeliterkirche in Döbling (Vienna) immediately before World War I and in 1924.

Fig. 14) Postcard on Beuronese Art at the 1905 Vienna Secession Exhibition
(copyright André M. Winter, published with his authoritazion)

In Vienna, Jan Verkade had two friends and partners: Hermann Bahr and Jože Plečnik. Verkade had known Bahr since his Paris time in 1891-1892. Bahr – a leading literate and literature critic – was linked to Vienna symbolism and a friend of main authors of that time, like Arthur Schnitzler, Stefan Zweig, Karl Kraus (see Oost). He converted to Catholicism in 1916 and paid several visits to Beuron since then. The secessionist architect Plečnik was the director of the 1905 exhibition to which the Beuron school participated, and the partner of Verkade in his works in the Döbling, Karmeliterkirche.

As author of a German translation of Cennino Cennini, Jan Verkade must have been known also in Hungary, whereCennini had a strong influence on art development for several decades, between1900 and 1940, first with the Gödöllő colony funded by Aladár Körösfői-Kriesch (1863-1920) before World War I, second with the Cennini Society funded by Sándor Nagy (1869-1950) in the after war years and finally with the “Spiritual artists” by Jenõ Remsey (1885-1980) and Aurél Náray (1883 - 1948) in the 1930s. However there is no proof of direct contacts.

Cennino as original reference for different streams of spiritualism

We started our journey in spiritual art with Cennino Cennini and will finish it with him. Almost all pages above have treated – in one way or another about – the relations between art and religion. And indeed, there is evidence that the figure of Cennino Cennini – while being a layman – has been interpreted as the one of a mystical painter, who attracted the attention of that part of the art circles which was closer to the Catholic Church. It should be mentioned, however, that Cennino turned to be a cultural reference points on art for different streams of religious thinkers. The last section of this note tries to deepen this point, with particular reference to France (and considering Verkade in this respect as a ‘French’ author, as his interest for Cennino derived from Maurice Denis).

When considering the interest for Cennino Cennini in the French catholic word, different phases should be considered.

After the French restoration and during the Empire of Napoleon III, Catholicism had been re-established as the leading religion of the country, which considered itself the "eldest daughter of the Church". Italians will remember that French troops defeated Mazzini’s and Garibaldi’s attempts to establish the Roman Republic in 1849 and prevented the occupation of Rome by the Italian troops until they were withdraw in 1870. This is the time of the revival of religious frescos in the countries’ churches, characterised by the didactic, naturalist and sentimental models of the Church of St. Sulpice in Paris. It is also the time of the time of the first translation of Cennino Cennini by Victor Mottez in 1858, who was one of the main representatives of the religious art in those decades. Mottez had been long time in Britain, where he had seen Pre-Raphaelite art, and was part of the Pre-Raphaelite school of Lyon. As already mentioned, he had been disciple of the Nazarene Johann Friedrich Overbeck and had worked together with Peter Cornelius.

The events in 1870-1871 modified profoundly the framework in which Catholicism developed in France. The Comune of Paris exposed it to the nightmare of a new anti-religious revolution in the country. To render thanks to God about the failure of that attempt, authorities decide to build-up, on the Montmartre hill, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris, to be sure it would be visible from any angle of the town. Intentionally, the style of the basilica is inspired to old Byzantine features.

The law on the separation between State and Church of 1905 (principle of laicité) marked the political marginalisation of Catholicism, despite of the reaction of the Vatican. This is the world in which Victor Mottez publishes the second translation of Cennino Cennini in 1911, under the impulse of Maurice Denis and with the important participation of Auguste Renoir and other scholars, as mentioned above.

Auguste Renoir was certainly not a progressive catholic. In his letter to Henri Mottez (and the other draft texts he prepared for the preface to Cennino Cennini’s text) expressed a strong anti-modern feeling, which has been recalled at the beginning of this note. Robert L. Herbert has studied Renoir’s conservatism, finding out – in one section of his book entitled “Renoir and Cennino Cennini in 1910” that already in the 1880s he had expressed himself against labour movements, stating that “the conception of divinity among superior peoples has always implied ideas of order, hierarchy and tradition”. This was in line with the political and religious conservatism of the journal “L’Occident”, of which Maurice Denis was the art critic. Herbert explains that L’Occident had been part of the rightist response to the Dreyfus case. Moreover, Denis was member, at that time of the right movement Action Française (which the Vatican condemned later on in the 1920s because of its strong anti-semitic and anti-democratic motives). Besides Denis, Herbert finds out that two scholars assisted Renoir in the preparation of his texts on Cennino: the art critic Georges Rivière (1855-1943), author of a biography of Renoir, entitled “Renoir and his friends”, and the literature critic Adrien Mithouard (1864-1919). Both of them are described not only as passionate defenders of catholic religion, but also as anti-Semite and partisans against Dreyfus. The same could be said of Camille Mauclair, whom we already met above (with his very strong comments against Cennino’s quality, when he saw it in the hands of Renoir) and ended up to be one of the supporters in the cultural field of the Vichy regime, with his 1944 book on “The crisis of modern art”.

Fig. 15) Camille Mauclair, La crise de l'Art moderne, 1944

But Cennino Cennini was seen as an ancient mentor of pure art also by literature critic Elémir Bourges (1852 –1925), which he had set-up – together with the painter Armand Point (1860–1932)- a symbolist art circle in Marlotte, near Fointenbleau, denominated Haute Claire. Bourges, very close to the philosopher Sorel, introduced Cennino’s treatise to the group. The extremely conservative journal “L’Indépendance”, founded by Georges Sorel (a sort of reactionary manifest for political, social and aesthetic traditionalism), spreaded the work of the group, which had a strong nationalist and ultimately filo-fascist orientation (see Antliff).

In conclusion, it would seem that Cennino Cennini has been seen as a sort of ‘original myth’ of conservative and back-wards looking Catholicism. The figure of Jan Verkade serves to balance these considerations. Jan Verkade’s aesthetic experiences were always oriented to the attempt of a spiritual synthesis between modernity and classicism. He confronted himself with a spirit of openness with some streams of modern art, wishing to contribute to a renewal of sacred art. He did it by crossing cultures, linking France and Germany, the Netherlands and Italy, showing a great curiosity for artists from different countries. All in all, Jan Verkade is a symbol of a progressive, and of a forward looking aspiration to spiritualism. He might have perhaps rejected that term, but he was integral part of modernity.

Clearly, his ambition to make headway towards spiritual painting has been one of the missions of his life. He did it in a tremendously difficult time, ahead and after World War I, in a time of social and political unrest. He passed away in 1946, at 78. For him – who had hoped to contribute to a new direction of art, oriented to combining terrene beauty and celestial sublimation, art of the past and art of the future in a sign of eternal art servicing the Supreme – it must have been terrible to experience the horrible things which happened during the last decades of his life and to find out – at the very end – that the human kind had been able to produce Auschwitz. At the age of 23 he had joined a group of painters who called themselves – using a Hebrew term – the Nabis (the prophets): a crucial word, as Hebraism is – as notorious – the religion of the prophets. At the end of his life he had to discover the term shoah.

This was – at the very end – the reason why the Beuronese experiment and all attempts to establish a spiritual art on a religious basis have remained an isolated episode in art history. They were all defeated by history. World War I broke the contacts between Verkade, Sérusier and Denis, the inseparable trio with a common view on art and religion. The years afterwards were marked by a catastrophic sequence of mistakes – all over Europe – which led to World War II. Ultimately, the world was not ready to receive Jan Verkade’s message. And his Cennino Cennini’s translation – terminated in the mid of a war which was termed for the first time as affecting the entire World, only a few hundred kilometres from the trenches - remained a simple contribution to art technique, instead of a step towards reaching a new spiritual art.

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ALL THE POSTS IN THE CENNINI'S SERIES

Giovanni Mazzaferro. Cennino Cennini and the "Book of Art": a Check-list of the Printed Editions. First part: from 1821 to 1900. Bologna, dicembre 2013

Giovanni Mazzaferro. Cennino Cennini and the "Book of Art": a Check-list of the Printed Editions. Second part: from 1901 to 1950. Bologna, dicembre 2013

Giovanni Mazzaferro. Cennino Cennini and the "Book of Art": a Check-list of the Printed Editions. Third part: from 1951 onwards. Bologna, dicembre 2013

Giovanni Mazzaferro. Cennino Cennini, An Enigmatic Edition and Hungary in the First 1900

Mark Clarke. Pentimenti : DV Thompson's reflections on his translation of Cennini

Francesco Mazzaferro. Cennino and Stalin's 'Neo-renaissance': the Russian Translation of the "Book of the Art" (1933)

Francesco Mazzaferro. Cennino Cennini between Europe and Japan, And why the failed attempt by Tsune Nakamura to translate the Book of Art was not in vain, after all

Francesco Mazzaferro. Cennino Cennini in 1924 Poland: the Journal 'Sztuka i Artysta' Between Theory of Art and Commercial Promotion

Francesco Mazzaferro. Cennino Cennini in Hungary: At the Search of the Anonymous Author of the first Hungarian Translation