CLICK HERE FOR ITALIAN VERSION
Paul Westheim,
Confessions of Artists.
Letters, Memoirs and Observations of Contemporary Artists.
Propyläen Publishing House, Berlin, 1925, 359 pages
Review by Francesco Mazzaferro
Part Three - Art, Nature, Order and Construction
[Original Version: March 2016 - New Version: April 2019]
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| Fig. 3) Cover page of the original version of the Europe Almanac of 1925, edited by Paul Westheim and Carl Einstein |
The artist and nature
The relationship between art and nature was
central to Westheim’s aestethics: for him the artist's task - as we shall see -
was indeed to filter out the stimuli that had reached him from nature,
reconstructing from them the order of things. Westheim rejected the
spiritualist interpretation of Kandinsky in "Concerning the Spiritual in
Art”, published in 1912 in Munich. There Kandinsky had looked for creative
inspiration exclusively in the depths of his own soul, abstracting from the
forms of reality. Instead, the German critic took side against such an abstract
art (i.e. the boldest novelty of the experimental currents of his times). Even
the selection he made of the artists’ writings in the Confessions was a clear indication in this direction.
"The
artist's mission - in the words of Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918) in a speech
precisely entitled "The artist's
mission", held in Fribourg in 1897 but published for the first time in
1923 in Zurich [66] - is to give shape to
what is eternal in nature, to reveal its inherent beauty; he sublimates the
shapes of the human body. He shows an enlarged and simplified nature, liberated
from all the details, which do not tell us anything. He shows us a work according to the size of his own experience, of his
heart and his spirit." [67]
"Art
must remain within the scope of appearance" [68] - wrote Max Liebermann (1847-1935). The true artist does not imitate nature, but creates his
own reality. "The imitation of
nature by the artist - Liebermann wrote in his "Credo/Creed" published
in 1922 in the journal Kunst und Künstler
(Art and artists) - is always a
reconstruction and new construction of what he (and nobody else but he) sees in,
or draws directly, from nature. The sight of the artist is not only an optical
phenomenon; it is also a contemplation of nature: the artist makes the concept
of nature, and in particular his own concept of nature (...); only one who
contemplates nature as a living whole, is artist. (...) The artist captures
reality as something that becomes, not that has become. " [69]
Something similar also wrote the French
Symbolist painter Odilon Redon (1840-1916) in "Confidences of an artist" (1894) published posthumously in
Paris in 1922 as part of the book of memoirs "To himself" [70]: "The
artist lives only day by day, and is the recipient of the things that surround
him; he transposes sensations from outside, according to what the fate reserves
him, but transforms them relentlessly and tenaciously, in a manner determined
by him alone." [71]
The
central role of colour in the interpretation of nature
The absorption and re-interpretation of
nature, according to active and conscious modalities, were therefore at the centre
of the artist's creation. These were frequent themes also in the artistic
literature of the post-French Impressionists, which assigned colour a crucial
role in this personal reworking of the outside world. For van Gogh (1853-1890),
to filter nature means giving up the local colour. "Behind the denial of local colour lies, in my opinion, much more.
«The real painters are those who do not use the local
colour» told
each other once [Charles] Blanc and Delacroix. Should I perhaps not understand
this statement merely in the sense that a painter is right if, instead of being
inspired by the colours of nature, is moved by the colours of his palette? I
mean, if for example you want to paint a head and you observe carefully the
nature that you have before your eyes, then you can think: this head is a
harmony of maroon, violet and yellow. In the end, I am putting on the palette a
violet, a yellow and a reddish brown and will leave them amalgamate. From
nature I keep a certain sequence and a certain correctness in the use of colours;
I am studying nature not to do crazy things, but to stay wise - and yet – I am
giving less importance whether the colour that I use remains exactly the same
or not [as it is in nature]; if it is well on my canvas, it should be just as
well that in nature." [72] To the imitation of nature van Gogh opposed a "real painting"
and to define it provides a description of Veronese’s coloristic methods: "The colour expresses something in itself,
individually; something which you cannot escape. You have to use it: what has a
nice effect, really beautiful, is also right. When Veronese painted the
portraits of his beau monde in his
golden The Wedding at Cana, he used
the entire richness of his palette, from dark purple to rich golden tones. Then
he added a delicate blue and a pearly white. But he felt it was better not to put them in the foreground. He sketched
them in the background - and he did it really well, transforming them from
marble palaces and sky into a part of a unique environment, in order to
complete the series of figures in an original way. This background is magnificent,
because it arose spontaneously from an assessment of the colours. " [73]
And returning on Delacroix in another
letter, he repeated: "I would not be
surprised if the impressionists came to the conclusion that my art has been
fertilized by Delacroix's thoughts rather than by them. In fact, instead of
representing precisely what I have in front of me, I am using colour without
any rules and hesitation, to use a bold expression. But let us leave aside any
theory. I want here to provide you with an example of what I meant. Let us
assume I want to paint a picture of a friend, an artist who makes big dreams,
and who works as the nightingale sings, because this is precisely this is its
nature. This man will be blond. In my picture I want to express my full
admiration, all the love that I have for him. I will portrait him in the most
faithful way, to start. But this does not mean that the picture is finished. To
conclude it, I will become now a colourist without any measure. Therefore I will
exaggerate the blond hair. I will add shades of orange, of chromium, of light
lemon. Behind the head, I will paint infinity, instead of the usual wall of a normal
room. I'll do a floor of the most intense blue, as hard as I can manage. And so
the blonde and lighted head with a background of deep blue will acquire a
mystical effect as a star in a dark blue." [74] These words were
published in Germany in 1906. It was the year of the revolt of the first
Expressionist group, the Bridge (Brücke),
against the Impressionists, and the words of Van Gogh - who preferred Delacroix
to impressionists and sought mystical effects due to the clash between the most
violent colours - must have deeply impressed them.
The same theme of colour as a tool for reinterpretation
of nature and the same focus on the continuity and discontinuity between
pre-impressionist, impressionist and post-impressionist art, can be found in
Paul Signac (1863-1935) and in his "From
Eugène Delacroix to post-Impressionism" published in France in 1899,
and translated into German in 1900. Signac clarified that Delacroix had used
hatching, the Impressionists had employed little comma-like strokes and the
neo-Impressionists had adopted the point. In all three phases, the artists
recognized the principle that the local colour should be dominated by the synthesis
of the colours inside the eye, and therefore the painter had to go beyond the
simple observation of nature, and mimic a cerebral process. With divisionism
"the brushstroke has not in itself
the goal of reproducing the object in accordance with nature, but only just to
represent the different elements that produce the colour effect." [75] This fully corresponds to the aphorisms
of Delacroix: "A cold and natural
reproduction of nature does not mean art ... The artist's aim is not to
accurately reproduce objects. And what would be the higher end of the whole art,
if not reproducing the impression?" [76]
The
visible world and the invisible world
The famous phrase of Paul Klee (1879-1940),
included in his survey "Creative Confession" in 1920, according to
which "art does not reproduce visible things, but makes them visible"
(Kunst gibt nicht wieder das sichtbare, sondern macht sichtbar) is not included in the Confessions.
As mentioned above - see Part Two - the anthology contained no writing by Klee.
Yet, the theme was present, albeit to reject the thesis of the painter. In
Klee, in fact, the statement justified the move to abstraction; in the artists
included in Westheim’s anthology, the result was quite the opposite.
To Klee replicated very polemically Max
Liebermann (1847-1935) in 1922: "To
make visible this invisible is what we call art. An artist who gives it up, and
therefore does not reflect - through mediation - the invisible in his
representation of reality, or what is behind the appearance – let us call it
spirit, nature, life - is not an artist. But the artist who wants to give up
the representation of reality in favour of intensification of his feelings is
an idiot. And in fact: how can one understand the extrasensory without the
sensory?” [77]
Just one year later, the same concept was
confirmed by another artist: Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). In a famous interview
to the Mexican gallery owner Marius de Zayas, in 1923, Picasso returned to the
theme of the relationship between art and truth (which had opened the Confessions with the mail exchange
between von Marées and Fiedler). Albeit necessarily in different terms, he came
to the same conclusions as Liebermann: "We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize
truth, at least the truth as is given to us and as we can understand."
[78] It would seem that the painter wanted to open the door to arguments in
favour of avant-garde, but as we will see it was not so: the relation to
reality remained at the centre of painting. We are in fact in the neoclassical
phase of Picasso's painting.
That phase was perfectly in tune with the
love of Westheim for French classicism, and was not at all isolated. Westheim
cited also Derain (1880-1954), albeit indirectly, in a passage of those years
by André Breton step (1921): Derain regretted the "distortion of the forms" [79] of his art in the early years,
and defined Corot "like a most
brilliant appearances in Western civilization." [80]. Even de Vlaminck
(1876-1958) spoke the same year of cubism as "school, cubism and brothel." [81].
It is the plea of the return to order in the afterwar years, which also Giorgio de Chirico accommodated (1888-1978) with his writing on "The return to craft" in 1919 (also included in the Confessions), which ends with the Latin statement
'Pictor classicus sum' [82] (I am a
classical painter). The same rejection of abstraction can be found in the
German-Italian sculptor Ernesto de Fiori (1884-1945), who drafted a brief writing
on "Abstraction and naturalism"
just for Westheim’s Confessions: "Can a work of art without a subject, i.e.
abstract art, be spiritual or essential in the fullest sense of the term? I
have to answer: No. (...) I just want
to say that an abstract artwork is, in the best case, only the development of an
idea of form, the clarification of a formal problem, a cold theory, and
therefore cannot be a true work of art. Instead, a naturalist artwork can reach
the supernatural height of a pure idea." [83]
Let us now go back to Picasso: "The idea of experimentation has often led
art in error and forced the artist's spirit to an unnecessary night work. This
is perhaps the biggest mistake of modern art in absolute terms. The experimental
spirit has poisoned all those who have not grasped fully the positive and
definitive elements of modern art, and led them to want to paint the invisible
and therefore the unpaintable." [84] In a similar way to what had been
stated by many artists already mentioned, Picasso too believed that the art of
the past had never been a mere representation of nature, but always and only an
interpretation of it. "One speaks of
naturalism as something opposed to modern painting. I would like to know if
there is anyone who has ever seen a natural work of art. Nature and art are two
different things and cannot be reduced to unity. Through art we express our
representation of what nature is not. " [85] After explaining that
painters such as Velázquez, Rubens, David, Ingres and Bouguerau did not do
anything but produce their representation of nature (interestingly, here comes
back Schopenauer’s theme of the world as representation,
the centre of the aesthetic beliefs of Westheim) Picasso added: "Cubism is not different from any other
school of painting. To all are common the same principles and the same
elements. The fact that for a long time people did not grasp Cubism and even
today some see nothing in it, means nothing by itself. I cannot speak English
and an English book for me consists of blank pages. This does not mean that the
English language does not exist. And why I should not blame anyone except
myself, if I do not understand something you do not know? " [86] In
his essay "Heroes and adventurers"
of 1931, Westheim cited the same passage of Picasso and commented: "Picasso is most time misunderstood: it is
not an abstract painter. He does not start - as Kandinsky or the surrealists -
from certain formal representations. He is a cubist: therefore, for him what
you see, and what is objective, must be clearly caught through an organizing
principle." [87]
Not surprisingly, the (short) quotations
from other Cubists completed the picture which Westheim wanted to offer readers
about that art movement, understood as a constructivist system. For example, an
aphorism by Braque in 1917 read: "Senses
change forms, the spirit gives form" [88]. Juan Gris wrote in 1921:
"I work with the elements of the
spirit, with imagination, I try to give concreteness to the abstract, I am
advancing from general to specific, or I start from abstraction to arrive to a
concrete object. My art is an art of synthesis, a deductive art (..) Cezanne
makes a cylinder of a bottle, I start from a cylinder to create a unique essence
and specific type." [89]
Kokoschka’s
doll - a special case of imitation of nature
To the Austrian painter Oskar Kokoschka
Westheim devoted an essay in 1918, republished in 1925, the year of the Confessions. Westheim’s interest for figuration
perhaps justified why he gave a lot of space (12 pages) to the painter’s correspondence
with Hermine Moos, a craftswoman in Stuttgart, specialized in the manufacture
of dolls. The letters were published here for the first time, as a case of true
imitation of nature. Abandoned by Alma Mahler, Kokoschka was not able to get
over it and between 1918 and 1919 had instructed Ms Moos to build a doll (which
he called sometimes Fetisch, Fetish
in German, and sometimes Idol, idol),
reproducing the features of the beloved on a human scale. On August 20, 1918 he
wrote: "Dear Miss Moos, yesterday I
sent you [...] a human scale representation of my beloved. I beg you to imitate
it in the most accurate way and make it with all your patience and sensuality. Please
pay close attention to the size of the head and neck, to the torso, trunk and
members. And take close to your heart the contour of the body. For example, the
neck line on the shoulders and the belly curve. I drew for you a profile of the
second leg just to allow you to see the shapes even from within; otherwise, the
whole figure is thought only in profile, so that the centre of gravity line
from the head to the sole of the foot's can allow a precise definition of the
profile of the body. " [90] Separately, he sent him very detailed
instructions on the nose [91], the hair colour (Titian red) [92], the skeleton,
muscles and soft areas [93], the skin [94]. "Take as a model one of the images that Rubens made of his wife, in
particular the two paintings where she is represented as a young woman with her
children” [95]
After having received a few photos of the
doll, Kokoschka reacted with a long four-page letter in December 1918; after
expressing his misgivings on the model, which he defined as a figure of
"ghostly vitality", he urged corrections and improvements on every
aspect: hands and feet, eyes, ears, the base of the neck, breasts (for which he
referred to Baldung Grien and Grünewald), skin, etc. [96] From then on, the
artist's letters were increasingly characterized by a sense of despair, until,
finally, the artist received the doll: "Dear Miss Moos, what should we do? ... I'm really terrified by your
doll. Although I had long been ready to make concessions and to depart from my
fantasies in the direction of reality, the doll contradicts too many things
what I requested and I hoped to receive from you. (...) Since these my requests
would be tantamount to a new production and I do not think, to speak openly,
that you have the patience for it, then I will give up." [97]. It was
6 April 1919. In those months almost everything happened: Austria and Germany had
lost the war, centuries-old empires collapsed and the society suffered violent
traumas, but the painter was prisoner of his own paranoia and was concerned
only with that.
The
artist and the organization of the order of things
We already mentioned the influence which
Schopenhauer had on Westheim and his time, when he discussed the task for the
artist to give order to nature, through his capacity for representation of
reality. "Certainly, art is always a
form of order - wrote in 1921 the elder Hans Thoma (1839-1924) in a short
letter to the Kunstblatt magazine - which the human spirit tries to create the
chaos of feelings, whether this happened through forms, colours, tones or
words.” [98]
In the lecture given in Freiburg in 1897,
Hodler stated that placing order on nature requires much more than a trained
eye. The picture should in fact propose a harmonious combination of "rhythm, shape and colour" [99], capturing
"the set of lines and the character
of proportions." [100] From it
followed the possibility to order nature according to the rules of parallelism [101].
It was not only a rule that one can "try
in different parts of an object, considering it in its own right, but it is
even more apparent when comparing several objects of the same kind, side by
side." [102]. From this general
principle Hodler drew precise consequences in the field of the history of
painting: the revaluation of the primitive, and the condemnation of the
Baroque. However, he went further: in his opinion, parallelism was a universal
rule that applies to our lives: "The
sense and the main conditions of life are the same for all of us. We all have
our joys and our sorrows - they are just repetitions of those of the others -
and they become evident to the outside word through the same gestures (or similar
gestures), since we are all made in the same way. If somewhere is celebrated a
feast, we see people moving in one and the same direction: they are parallel creatures
to each other, who follow each other. Sometimes you see people gathered around
a speaker, expressing their opinions; or if we go into a church during a mass,
we feel like a massive single stream."
[103] And he concluded: "The work of art will reveal a new order that
is immanent in things, and that is the idea of unity." [104]
Only a few years later, in his letters to
Emile Bernard in 1904, Paul Cézanne had virtually expressed the same search for
a general order of things. It is a very famous passage: "Let me repeat what I've already said; deal
with nature by way of the cylinder, the sphere and the cone, and put everything
in perspective so that each side of an object, of a plane leads to a central
point. The lines that run parallel to the horizon give the horizontal extension
of a portion of nature (...). The lines that are perpendicular to this horizon
give depth. Now, for us men nature has more depth that extension, and hence the
need to mix a sufficient amount of blue in our vibrations of light, represented
with red and yellow shades, in order to create an air effect." [105]. This short passage made of Cézanne -
in the eyes of Westheim as well as of his contemporaries - one of the leading
theoreticians of contemporary art, although he himself did not consider at all being
a theorist, let alone a philosophizing painter. In fact, in some subsequent
letters also addressed to Bernard, Cézanne himself urged him not to fall into
useless forms of speculation and to remain anchored "to the only true way: the direct and concrete study of nature." [106]
Even Paul
Gauguin (1848-1903) proposed some precepts that, in his opinion, should help to
establish an order (in the form of a harmonious system between colours,
according to the precepts of synthetism). He did it in a totally atypical way:
simulating the existence of a writing on art, drafted by an ancient Turkish
painter, the "Livre des metiers de
Vehbi—Zumbul Zadi", and thus distancing himself from his own precepts
(initially, several critics fell into his trap). It was a writing of a few
pages, of course actually produced by Gauguin himself under a false name, and included
by him in his memoirs Before and After.
The text of Avant et Après (an
illustrated manuscript) was completed in 1903, shortly before his death. The
facsimile of the manuscript was published (in French) for the first time in
Leipzig in 1918 [107]; then it was first translated into German in 1920 [108]
and only later on published in Paris in 1923 [109]. It was therefore a still
recent and well-known text by the German public, at the time of its inclusion
in the Confessions. "Seek harmony and not opposition, agreement
among colours and not clash among them. It is the eye of ignorance which
assigns a fixed and unvarying colour to each object. I say you: beware of this
stumbling block. Practice to paint an object in pairs or in the shade, or to
place the objects close to each other or behind the plane of objects that have
different colours or similar ones. In this way, you will please for your
variety and your, and I repeat precisely your own, truth. Go from light to dark
and from dark to light. (...) Also avoid the pose on the move. Each of your
characters must be in a static position. (...). Apply yourself to the contour
of each object: the clarity of the outline is the prerogative of the hand which
no hesitation of the will can ever weaken." [110]
A real
alternative system was represented by divisionism. We give the floor to Paul
Signac (1863-1935): "Divisionism is
a harmony of ambitious systems, more aesthetics than technique. Points are only
technical means. (...) You can divide colours without resorting to points." [111] "To divide colour means to look for its strength and colour in such a
way as to represent the coloured light through its pure elements. (...) The
basis of the division of colour is contrast. Is the contrast, however, not art by
itself?" [112] And he quoted
the words which Georges Seurat (1859-1891) dictated to his biographer Jules
Christophe: "Art is harmony, harmony
is in turn the agreement of unequal, but also the agreement of what is similar
in tone, in colour, in the line. Shade means: light and dark. Colour means: red
and its complementary colour green; orange and complementary colour violet...
The technical means to this end is the optical mixture of tones, colours and
their opposites (shadows), all of which are subject to very strict rules." [113]
Curt Herrmann (1854-1929) - whom we have
repeatedly mentioned in the previous parts of this post - theorized divisionism
in 1920 as the expression of a system of general rules (or even laws of art),
that define the rhythm of art and intend at the same time to solve the problem
of space. "The expression of space
was conceived by naturalism and impressionism as an illusion; light and shadow
were the actual instruments to enhance the impression of space. Today, however,
the space problem is meant as unconditional unity of form and colour. I would
like to refer to 'the organization of the three-dimensional element on the
surface' in opposition to the construction of space as an illusion. The
difference is evident. In the first case, the space problem is resolved through
the perspective illusion of the eye, leading the sight up to the background of
the picture; in the second case, the individual forms do not simulate the space
through perspective, but form a unique body, which is divided internally and
moves rhythmically, and therefore has the effect of renewing creation and
creating the space. And rhythm does not only dominate shape, but also the
colour that fills forms." [114]
The idea of the work of art as a living
organism, subject to a number of 'organic' rules, had become a constant, almost
a commonplace in those years: among the artists included in the Confessions, it had been discussed in
Germany by Wilhelm Morgner [115] in 1916 and Paul Adolf Seehaus [116] in 1918.
In 1921, also Albert Gleizes (1881-1953)
reflected on "The Creative Mission
of Man in Art", using the same themes: the concept of 'total creation'
and the idea of conversion of substance into living bodies with "will and living awareness" [117].
Gleizes theorized the idea that artistic creation is subject to a universal
law, which can manifest itself equally "in a crystal as well as in a human body" [118] and participates
of the universal soul of the world [119]. Interestingly, this idea also
belonged to architectural studies. In fact, the architect Bruno Taut developed the
same theme. For his association of architects "Crystal Chain" (Gläserne
Kette) he wrote a programmatic article entitled "My view of the world", in which he theorized the unity of substance
and spirit [120] and the birth of the so-called crystalline architecture:
"each elementary substance lives." [121]
The composition
Odilon Redon (1840-1916) was convinced that
the "law of the composition is the fundamental law of creation"
[122]. It is something he had learned – he added – in the school of his
teacher, the academic painter Jean-Léon Gérôme ( 1840-1916), to whom he devoted
a few pages full of sincere affection, although the master’s art was so
different from that of the symbolist painter. "I mean the size, the rhythm [of the work], this organism of the work
that cannot be taught through rules and forms, but that it transmitted and
communicated through the communion of the teacher's work with the student." [123]
In Redon's love for the composition is ultimately
reflected the emergence of abstract motifs: "However, since the beginning I sought perfection and in particular -
now you would hardly believe it - the perfection of form. But I have to
immediately start by saying: I have not searched the shape of figures. In my
works, a form will not be found that objectively is realized in itself, and can
be defined by the laws of light and shadow, using the learned tools of
modelling. Only at the beginning I tried - because one has to try to make the
maximum to understand everything - to reproduce the visible objects according
to these methods of ancient optics. I did it for exercise. But today I can say
with full awareness, and affirm strongly: my whole art is limited only to the
tools of chiaroscuro, and owes much to the effects of the abstract line, this
strength that comes from depth, which directly affects the spirit. The
evocative force cannot create anything, if - with the line that is drawn by the
spirit – it does not find refuge in the secret games of shadows and
rhythm." [124]
The interest in the composition was also at
the centre of Henri Matisse’s attention (1869-1954), in an interview in 1909:
"What did realists and
impressionists actually want? They sought the pure imitation of nature. Their
whole art is based on truth and power of representation. It is an entirely objective art;
one might almost say it is devoid of feelings and exclusively devoted to pleasure.
(...) We want something different; we want to achieve an inner balance through
simplification of ideas and plastic forms. Our only ideal consists of the
compositional entire. Details damage the purity of the lines and the intensity
of the feelings; we reject them. It is about learning - or perhaps learning
again - a way of painting that focuses on the pure elements of the design and
the line." [125]
The
rhythm in painting
The search for a new compositional order
includes the attempt to combine space and time: "Recently, I became acutely aware that in the framework there is not
only a space effect (the surface), but that space and time are
inseparable" [126]. These were
words of August Macke (1887-1914), written in 1913. The encounter between space
and time "plays a big role in the
observation of the image. This immediately becomes clear as soon as the picture
is of great size and is hung in a long, narrow corridor. In that case you have
to slowly move along it. Observing a similar picture is like going along a
fence and touching each individual bar. (...) But that fence is tedious,
because it always has the same form, like a pile of sand, or just like a
whitened wall, or as a nothing, as a 1: 1: 1: 1". [127]
Instead, "what is
wonderful in a picture is the "rhythm" [128]. “The beauty of a painting is in the ability to
bring order to the different lines, surfaces, colors, human forms, meat,
leaves, haloes, profiles, columns, (... ) arches, domes, roofs." [129]. Paul Adolf
Seehaus (1819-1919), his contemporary, repeated the subject in 1916:"I am trying to change the shape of nature as
little as possible, and to work with the forms that are found in it, using them
with a rhythmic purposes" [130].
And in 1917 he defined expressionism as the art which did not conceive the
object "as something essential, in
some cases even as something like a definition" [131], but "as an opportunity to develop its their own
pace , of which the objects are simply a support" [132]. The observation of nature (Seehaus spoke
of a "fanatic love for the landscape" [133]) was not only an opportunity to reproduce it, but also
aroused in him the impulse "to play
with visible shapes, to embellish them in the fantasy, to adapt them to themselves,
to enlarge them through their own rhythm and to use them in this way." [134] And
on his 'Boats in the harbour" he even said that "the harbour has something of a rape of nature" [135].
Construction
In a world which became technological, the
ancient idea of the composition - conceived as a reinterpretation and
reorganization of nature by the painter - was enhanced and consolidated with
the concept of construction, which included the same ambition to represent the
order of things, but in a framework where the mechanized reality had replaced
nature as inspiration. Thus, constructivism was born. The Czech painter and
writer Josef Čapek published in 1920 a text called "Experiment of an
Experiment” (Versuch eines Versuches). The text was published in Kunstblatt
1920 and Westheim included it in the Confessions
five years later. Čapek reflected in it on the creative process and gave artists
the same role as magicians. "I call
painting magician, because it competes with the creator. He created the matter in
all its forms, but also the image with all of its contents has become matter.
It is not true that painting is about dematerialization: the painted figure
should be a construction, something perfectly operational, organic: a reality." [136] He added the few elements in which one can
always believe: "(1) The existence
of things; things are like they are, there are no appearances, but only
reality; (2) that man is the measure of all things; (3) anthropocentrism,
because this convention is the most practical for men; (4) that the means which
are organic to man are the best and the most suitable." [137] Machines are these latter most suitable
means.
We are in the new framework, entirely focused
on the future: by no accident, his brother Karel Čapek, one of the greatest
writers and dramatists in Czech language, in 1921 presented a science-fiction play
entitled "Rossum's Universal Robots" in which, for the first time ever
in history, appeared the term robot.
The Confessions
collected many examples of the new constructivist aesthetic: "The new
study of nature" by Rudolf Belling (1886-1972), "The sculpture" by
the Latvian Karlis Zāle (1888-1942) and two short statements by the Russians
Kazimir Malevich (1878- 1935) and Iwan Puni (1892-1956). To that world belonged
also the writing "The aesthetics of the machine" by Fernand Léger
(1881-1955); it was a programmatic text, and more precisely a lecture that the
French painter held in Paris in June 1924. The reader of the Confessions was thus made aware of the
latest developments in art literature. The theme was the beauty of industrial
objects as art objects (and thus not merely as ornamental objects) and as expression
of a new geometric order "independent
of the values of the feelings, and the description and imitation of nature." [138]. We find, in part, concepts that we
have already seen elsewhere in the Confessions, albeit in a different form:
"The value of technique beauty without
artistic intention resides in its organism and can be deducted at the same time
by its geometric ambitions. I can therefore speak of a new order: the
architecture of the technical world. Since the industrial object belongs to the
architectonic order, it is assigned an important role in today's artistic
creation." [139] The new order was
considered as equivalent to those of the past: the order of Greek art with its
horizontal lines, that of Romanesque and Gothic, with the prevalence of the
vertical lines. It was with the Renaissance, however, that art entered into a
crisis, with "the biggest mistake
you can ever make" [140]: the imitation of nature. The new order was
there re-establishing true art.
Here the anthology stopped chronologically.
The artistic literature of the two generations preceding the publication of
Confessions had revealed us that the today predominant image of art in the
Weimar Republic, but also in Europe, did not exhaust the variety of views
expressed. Paul Westheim, one of the great German intellectuals of those years,
documented an aesthetic debate that, at least in part, has been forgotten today.
Perhaps it is a vain wish, but the anthology would deserve to be published again.
NOTES
[67] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 42.
[68] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 23.
[69] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 24.
[70] The publisher H. Floury in Paris printed the book for the first time in 1922, under the title “A soi-même. Notes sur la vie, l’art et les artistes”. The original is available on the Internet https://archive.org/details/soimmejourna00redouoft. The English text was published by G. Graziller in 1986: “To myself : notes on life, art and artists”, and was edited by Mira Jacob and Jeanne L Wasserman.
[71] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 82.
[72] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 98.
[73] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 100.
[74] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 103.
[75] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 105.
[76] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 112.
[77] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 23.
[78] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 144.
[79] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 154.
[80] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 153.
[81] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 155.
[82] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 303.
[83] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 282.
[84] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 144.
[85] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 144.
[86] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p.145.
[87] Westheim, Paul – Helden und Abenteuer, Welt und Leben der Künstler, Berlin, Verlag Hermann Recekendorf, 1931, 238 pages. Quotation at page 221.
[88] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 148.
[89] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 150.
[90] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 245.
[91] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 243.
[92] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 244.
[93] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 245.
[94] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 246.
[95] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p.323.
[96] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, pp. 247-250
[97] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, pp. 253-254
[98] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 22.
[99] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 43.
[100] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p.44.
[101] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p.49.
[102] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p.51.
[103] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p.51.
[104] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p.53.
[105] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p.54.
[106] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p.55 e p. 56.
[107] Gauguin, Paul - Avant et après P. Gauguin aux Marquises 1903 – Leipzig, Wolff, 1918, 213 pages.
[108] Gauguin Paul, Vorher und Nachher, edited by Erik Ernst Schwabach, Munich, K. Wolff, 1920, 240 pages.
[109] The 1923 French edition is available on the Internet: https://archive.org/stream/avanteta00gaug#page/n1/mode/2up.
[110] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 67.
[111] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 109.
[112] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 109.
[113] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 109.
[114] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, pp. 117-119
[115] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 197.
[116] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 177.
[117] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 336.
[118] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 338.
[119] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 339.
[120] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 286.
[121] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 288.
[122] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 76.
[123] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 76.
[124] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 85.
[125] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, pp. 140-141.
[126] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 166.
[127] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 166.
[128] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 166.
[129] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 166.
[130] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 168.
[131] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 172.
[132] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 172.
[133] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 170.
[134] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 173.
[135] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 173.
[136] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p.310.
[137] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p.310.
[138] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 323.
[139] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 324.
[140] Westheim, Paul - Künstlerbekenntnisse, … quoted, p. 330.
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