Max Liebermann, Briefe [Letters]. Collected, annotated and edited by Ernst Braun. Volume one (1869-1895)

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German Artists' Writings in the XX Century - 9

Max Liebermann
Briefe [Letters]
Collected, annotated and edited by Ernst Braun

Volume One (1869-1895)

2011, 590 pages, Baden-Baden, Deutscher Wissenschaftlicher-Verlag (DWV)

Review by Francesco Mazzaferro

[Original Version: October 2016 - New Version: April 2019]

Fig. 1) The first volume of Max Liebermann’s Letters

Critical edition of the entire correspondence planned in eight volumes

With the pace of a volume a year, the publisher DWV of Baden-Baden and the Association Max Liebermann in Berlin have already published the first six volumes of the full correspondence of Max Liebermann, one of the absolute protagonists of German and European art at the beginning of the twentieth century. The collection includes 2600 letters sent by the painter, as well as 500 letters he received. The most recent volume of this monumental critical edition, the sixth, was presented in Berlin on August 26 this year. According to the plan of the work, there are still two volumes missing, since the years 1922-1935 have not yet been covered. The work (which is funded by several public and private German foundations [1]) is all due to the efforts of a single scholar, Ernst Braun, an expert of Liebermann, born in Dresden in 1945. Braun did not have any training either as art historian or as an art critic, but as a mathematician. The work he has accomplished so far is impressive. The critical apparatus of each volume contains a chronology of events during the period under review, the biographical data of all those named in the volume and some selected articles, published by art critics with which Liebermann corresponded in the specific time frame treated in each volume. To this must be added the indices of the aforementioned persons, the places, the persons to whom the letters were addressed, the works of art mentioned, the archives in which the letters are preserved, the art exhibitions mentioned and the signatures, in addition to the photographic documentation of the illegible passages.

The work of Braun began even before German unification, when he was simply a mathematics teacher in a high school in Dresden, notwithstanding the thousand obstacles that the German Democratic Republic placed to the exchange of information with West Germany. In 2010, Braun retired; obviously, since then he devoted himself to Liebermann’s letters. Recently, moreover, the author has taken care, in addition to the six volumes of Liebermann, also of the letters by other German artists in the early twentieth century [2].

First editions of Lieberman's letters

A first edition of seventy letters by the painter had been curated by Franz Landsberger (1883-1964) in 1937 [3]. It is really surprising – to say the truth – that the art critic, a member of the Jewish community, managed to publish a collection of letters of an artist who was also a Jew in Germany during those years. Landsberger fled to Britain in 1939. That edition was published again, with our Ernst Braun as editor, by Hatje publishers in Stuttgart in 1994 [4].

Fig. 2) The collection of letters by Alfred Lichtwark to Max Liebermann, published in 1947

Fig. 3) The correspondence between Lichtwark and Liebermann, published in 2002

In 1947 it was also released the long-life exchange of letters of the director of the Kunsthalle in Hamburg, AlfredLichtwark, with Liebermann. The edition was curated by the Hamburg art historian Carl Schellenberg (1898-1968) [5]. The entire correspondence between Liebermann and Lichtwark was published and commented in 2002 by Birgit Pflugmacher [6].

Max Liebermann: a man of action

With Liebermann’s Letters we run into a documentation of absolute value, which allows us to get an idea of the evolution of artistic taste in Wilhelmine Germany and later on in the Weimar Republic, passing from academicism to vanguard. A leading representative of secessionist movements, Liebermann established himself as the leader of German impressionism, in a phase in which he tried to open the German figurative culture to the French influence. In a first stage he clashed with a lot of resistance; later on, he established himself as the most powerful of the German artists, until he became himself a victim of the protests of a new avant-garde, also before the first World War. He was one of the most significant representatives of a perfectly integrated Judaism in German society. His motto on the issue was a verse of Heinrich Heine: "Just as the rabbi also the monk / ah! How much they stink both" [7]. And yet the painter was due to be the victim, during the decades (the first significant case was in 1901, and is covered at the end of the second book of the Letters), of the anti-Semitic sentiments present in the German society, which sometimes motivated the opposition to his painting, considered as "anti-German" in some nationalistic circles. His central role in Berlin, as President of the Prussian Academy of Fine Arts, however, remained unchallenged until the Nazis took power. Coming from a wealthy family, he lived in the family home on the central Pariser Platz in front of the Brandenburg Gate. Here, now eighty-six years old, he saw the parading procession of the Nazis celebrating Hitler's appointment as chancellor in 1933, and wrote: "I could never eat all that I want to throw up." He died at age 88 in 1935; his wife Martha, married in 1884, committed suicide in 1943, at the age of eighty-five years, a few hours before being transported to the concentration camp  of Theresienstadt.

Fig. 4) The 'stumbling stone' placed at number 7 of Pariser Platz in Berlin, to remember Martha Liebermann

The letters reveal the personality of the man and its evolution. In the first tome, the letters are short, clear, and direct texts. The corresponding counterpart to Liebermann is always informed precisely by him on what he is talking about. His opinions are clear-cut, and do not betray any complacency for ambiguity. The correspondence is very broad, but certainly not for reason of baroque excesses; it is rather due to the fact that Lieberman was a man of action, and therefore had a constant correspondence activity with the many and continuous contacts he held. His favourite counterparts in the first tome were the art entrepreneurs: the museum directors, the critics who led art journals or publishing houses, the art dealers and gallery owners. The letters discussing the aesthetic taste were, after all, a minority. Moreover, Liebermann has left us very few writings of general type. In 1916, the publisher Bruno Cassirer released the short essay "The Phantasy in painting" [8], republished in 1922 and then, recently, in 1978 and 2011. It was the only real theoretical text that he wrote, and did not exceed sixty pages.

Fig. 5) The first edition of "The Phantasy in Painting" dated 1916 

The (until then) complete collection of his writings was published in 1922; the publisher was again Bruno Cassirer [9]. It was a volume of 296 pages, recently republished in paperback edition [10]. It consisted of five sections, which included, above all, articles and short speeches: an autobiographical section, the aforementioned essay on "Phantasy in Painting", a series of portraits of personalities (many of which have been his correspondents in the epistolary), a discussion of topical issues and finally a section on Academy and Secession. And yet, even combining all the texts and theoretical discourses, all of this made a fairly limited production, in comparison to the importance of this figure in the German artistic life and the several thousands pages of correspondence.

Nature and art

Released in 2011, the first book of the Letters documented the phase in which the painter stood at the head of the anti-academic movement in the young capital of the newly created German empire's capital, after the years of study in Weimar and training in the Netherlands, France and finally in Munich. The first letter was dated 1869, when he was twenty-two, and addressed to the younger brother Felix [11]; the first painting dated back to 1870: "Decrepit house". Two years after, he finalised the "Pluckers of geese": it became immediately noticeable, in a letter of 1872, that the twenty-five year old painter was not fond of the conceptual aspects of painting - so important in German art of those times – as he explained to Felix. "I have not yet been able to finish my painting. The theme, from a conceptual point of view, is really nothing. I decided to give full prominence to the painting, so that I could fully trust my conscience. And when the painting will have been finished, I wish luck would help me. If it will have failed badly, at least what I have tried to do has been something artistic" [12].

It therefore appeared from the beginning an instinctive artistic temperament, dominated by an interest in a painting oriented to find inspiration in the world and nature, even with simple themes. In the 1970s a social-realist interpretation of his painting prevailed, like if Liebermann had intended to depict the poor on earth. The first tome does not confirm this interpretation. In 1890, Liebermann wrote to his agent in Munich, Albert Kollmann: "What we want is the poetry of the simple truth” [13]. His realism was not political, but pictorial. It is this concept that made him very suspicious of some modern movements of his time, as mysticism and symbolism [14]. And in fact for Liebermann the real distinction is between pictorial realism (he loves is) and poetic realism (which he despises).

That concept was reaffirmed in a letter to Woldemar von Seidlitz, the director of the Dresden Gallery, in April 1894. It is a famous letter, already published in the anthology of Else Cassirer in 1913 and dedicated to Rubens. "And there is a second aspect that seems to me eminently modern: it is his piety towards nature. Although the neo-idealists want to teach us that true art goes beyond the simple reproduction of nature, I believe however that, after the failure of the neo-idealists, symbolists, etc .., art should be recognized as la nature vue á travers d’un tempérament [note of the editor: It is a quote from Zola: art is nature seen through a temperament]. It is proven by the fourteenth century and Rubens: they felt the nature poetically, but they knew that nature is the greatest artist. And, above all, Italians and Rembrandt were naive; instead, nowadays it seems to me that, after having recovered so hard the way of nature, we throw ourselves headlong back down the wrong way through the maze of the so-called poetry" [15].

One of the implications of the centrality of nature is that artists must get inspiration directly from it, instead of imitating other artists. "It is only the understanding of the nature to make an artist; only the reproduction of nature, which must be understood artistically, makes the style. And yet, it may be much easier to take the style of previous eras, from the Pre-Raphaelites - as Burne-Jones does - or from the Dutch - as Lenbach does - instead of having the trouble of scrutinizing the nature. But no matter how difficult, nature rewards abundantly those who study it through the gift that only it can give: the originality. It is artist the one who looks at the nature with his own eyes and also has the ability to reproduce the original which is peering" [16]. These are words written again to the director of the Dresden Gallery, Woldemar von Seidlitz, in 1894.

The love for Flanders and the Netherlands

One cannot understand the young Liebermann, if one forgets that the Netherlands and Flanders were for him the places of art par excellence. He studied in Weimar with a Flemish master, the painter Ferdinand Pauwels, and chose quickly that region of the world both as a source of inspiration for his landscapes, as well as a regular holiday destination for the whole life. His great landmarks were Rembrandt and Frans Hals. The aforementioned group of farmers who plucked geese clearly refers to the baroque Dutch art. As often happens, no one is a prophet in his homeland. The natural plant and the choice of the theme were not liked in Berlin, where it dominates the academicism of history painters, all dedicated to celebrating the new reunified Germany. You read it in the first few letters. In 1872 he wrote to his brother from Weimar, just about the "Pluckers of geese": "Critics in Berlin have smashed me. Their fierce criticism, however, has shown me that it is not a mediocre work. That is what would have really depressed me" [17]. And in fact the picture was purchased, encouraging the young painter to persist.

Also the first successful paintings rendered Dutch scenes: the Retirement house in Amsterdam in 1880 and the cycle of the Orphan girls (always in Amsterdam) in 1885. In 1879 he went for the first time in the Netherlands, and wrote enthusiastically to his brother: "I would almost believe that Ruysdael and Hobbema have done here their sketches. In any case, the theme of their paintings is from here, and in the meantime nothing has changed. Home and kitchen are those in which the pork is smoked, and which the farmer kills every year" [18].

Since then, Liebermann was at home in Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brussels and in all centres of Dutch culture, always being very warmly greeted. The exchanges of letters with Dutch-speaking friends, however, were all in French, the lingua franca of that era. In fact, belonged to the Dutch world even a few living painters of which Liebermann had great admiration, and with whom it maintained relations for decades: the painter of landscapes Josef Israëls (1824-1911), with whom the exchange of letters went lost, and the portrait painter Jan Veth (1864-1942), with a first letter in 1889 [19].

And here one can point to a specific feature of Liebermann: his interest in art schools was not confined to the past, but denoted an interest in contemporary developments. In fact, he promoted the work of his favourite artists in Germany, for example proposing the services of Veth as a portrayer of personalities of the German culture [20] or helping him, when Veth had to do with some German clients who did not pay [21].

The relationship with France

Liebermann loved Corot, Millet and France in general [22]. The love was reciprocated. Since the first years of activity, it is evident that the young German painter with a clear Nordic taste was able to win the sympathy of the French art world, despite the widespread anti-German revanchist feelings, which existed in France after the defeat against Prussia in 1871 and the subsequent loss of Alsace and Lorraine. Liebermann exhibited his above mentioned "Retirement home in Amsterdam" at the 1881 Paris Salon; it was bought by the historian Léon Maître, who wrote a letter of congratulations, with some questions on the technique used. Even the painter Fantin-Latour sent him his congratulations [23]. The young colleague Emile Blanche [24] (1861-1942) informed Liebermann by letter that he had gained, as first German since the war, the medal of the first prize. And, the year after, he was the only German to be invited to the exhibition of the Circle of XV, a group promoted by Jules Bastien-Lepage [25].

Liebermann worked in favour of promoting mutual understanding between the two States. When the German government refused to participate in the 1889 Universal Exhibition (that of the Eiffel Tower) because it was held on the centenary of the French Revolution and thus had a Republican and subversive flavour, Liebermann was contacted by some French painters, who asked him to organize an alternative exhibition of German artists in Paris, in an unofficial pavilion. He sent his painting "Menders of networks", of which we will say more below. He got the principle agreement of Menzel and Leibl to expose some works of them in Paris. Then he turned to private collectors (Erdwin Amsick [26]), directors of public collections (Wilhelm Bode [27]) and even to the hated academic painter Franz Defregger [28], asking them to authorise a loan of the works of Menzel and Leibl, being able to prove that the authors had agreed [29]. He succeeded in the endeavour; however, he explained to Bode that Anton von Werner, the Director of the Royal Academy Fine Arts in Berlin, had threatened as a revanche to prohibit any new exposure of his paintings in Berlin. The Ministry of Interior intervened and managed to calm things down, and to curb hot spirits of von Werner, to avoid any major hitches in the artistic world of Berlin.

The same year, Liebermann wrote to a unidentified French painter, inviting French artists to exhibit in Munich: "You do not ignore – he wrote in French – the attacks directed against us because of our exposure to Paris. I am not referring to the infamy of some newspapers where hatred and envy are hiding just under the guise of patriotism. The attacks were too trivial to touch us. But even among colleagues who have the greatest admiration of the French genius, I met those who argue that we should not expose in Paris because the French artists do not expose here with us. It is therefore clear that the agreement of your compatriots to expose in Munich would be the best answer and the only one that would put us away from these objections" [30].

In 1889, France decided to reward the members of the German Committee promoting the unofficial exhibition of Paris with the Legion of Honour. According to the procedures of the time, the Legion of honour could be given to foreign nationals, only if their government had manifested its agreement. While the Bavarian government agreed, the Prussian prevented their subjects to accept an award for an unauthorized exhibition. Liebermann then turned to the French deputy Antonin Proust (1832 - 1905), a well-known politician for having been culture minister a few years earlier, asking him to intercede to ensure the official motivation of the honour – to which he attached great importance – would be changed. Any other motivation would have been acceptable to the authorities in Berlin [31]. Even his Swedish friend and painter Anders Zorn interceded for him with Proust, but that change revealed impossible [32]. In 1890, however, Liebermann received a letter of the French painter Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier (1815-1891) with his appointment as an associate member of the International Society of French artists [33]. In 1892 he exhibited again in Paris at the National Society of Fine Arts, of which he became a member in the same year [34]: he explained by letter to Richard Graul that the merit was not actually of Meissonier, a war painter with nationalist and anti-German instincts, but above all of Puvis de Chavannes [35]. In 1895 Liebermann obtained a second nomination for the Legion of honour [36], and was informed that the German Government would not oppose any more [37]. Therefore, he formally accepted the award [38], which he received in 1896.

The slow rise in Germany

In Germany, Liebermann collected the interest of prominent painters such as Menzel (first letter in 1884) [39], von Uhde [40] and Leibl [41] (for both, letters from 1889). Yet, after the Parisian success, the impact with Berlin (where the artist settled permanently in 1884, at thirty-seven) was not encouraging. He complained a year later with one of his teachers, the elderly artist Carl Steffeck (1818-1890): "Here in Berlin I feel completely isolated from an artistic point of view. While I received the most flattering reactions from Paris, where my paintings are exhibited at the Circle of XV, here in Berlin it seems completely useless even to turn to my fellow lords. And I am missing the creative community, which was so rich in Paris, and most recently in Munich" [42]. Steffeck invited him to move with him to Könisberg, a town in East Prussia, promising a less competitive and acrimonious environment, but Liebermann hesitated and eventually decided to stay in Berlin for family reasons [43]. He belonged to an affluent family and was able to afford a slow ascent; and he did not want to sink into the German province. He also managed to exhibit his 1886 "Orphans of Amsterdam in a garden" at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin. Since 1887 his works were handled by the gallery owner and art dealer Fritz Gurlitt (1854-1893).

In Berlin Liebermann hated academic painters. He considered Anton von Werner as a destroyer of talent [44]. Liebermann’s success in Germany depended almost solely upon Munich, where he exhibited four works at the artists association, i.e. at the Kunstverein, and got the first major recognition in 1890, the gold medal for his painting "Old woman with goats", completed in the previous year (he also received a letter of congratulations from Leibl [45]). And Munich became his point of contact with the art market, thanks to his agent Albert Kollman (1837-1915), which was one of the his most frequent correspondents in the first tome of the Letters. In 1890-1891 Kollmann organized a successful personal exhibition at the Kunstverein, showing the "Menders of nets”, his most fortunate painting in those years. He told to be stunned that even Defregger, a painter of academic school, had bought one of his paintings [46]. Since then the correspondence with Kollman became dense, and was focused on fixing prices for the sale of paintings and the commissions to be collected to allow photographs and prints.

To expand progressively his role beyond the Bavarian capital, Liebermann benefited from the critical support received from a group of art critics who, according to the practice of those years, were also directors of museums. Much of the correspondence of the first volume is with Wilhelm Bode (1854-1929) and Alfred Lichtwark (1852-1914), his supporters and great friends (nevertheless, the letters to them were drafted stylistically with the respectful tone and even the formal style that was used in those times also between people who had stable amicable relations for years). The first was the future director of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin, the second the current director of the Hamburg Kunsthalle. The first recorded contact with Bode was in April 1878. Liebermann was thirty-one year old, and send to the Director a short letter accompanied by two positive articles published two years before on him [47]. In the following year he urged Bode to ignore the harsh criticism of his "Menders of networks" by the art critic Adolf Rosenberg (1850- 1906) and to come to see the exposed painting at Gurlitt’s [48]. It is clear that the reaction was positive. Bode started attending Liebermann’s house. Moreover, he advised Lichtwark to buy the painting for the Kunsthalle in Hamburg [49]. On 27 May 1889, the painter received from Lichtwark a letter full of compliments, which ended with the price request. For the first time, Liebermann was exposed in a state art gallery. It was his first great success in Germany. Liebermann thanked Bode on 7 June.

Since then, the German-speaking world learned more and more to appreciate Liebermann. In 1894, he won the gold medal in Vienna [50]. He commented on this: "That the Viennese, prisoners of most rusty aesthetic conceptions, have given it to me, shows the progress our views have made. And it is therefore something important" [51]. The same year, he was surprised to read an article in his favour in a conservative journal and noted that, since then, the prices of his paintings had begun to grow [52], reaching the same levels as Monet [53]. Only on one occasion he did not manage to be successful: the case of the portrait of the lord mayor of Hamburg, a work which became an endless story.

The never ending story of the portrait of Mr. Petersen, Lord Mayor of Hamburg

The acquaintance with Lichtwark in Hamburg was an opportunity to discover the Hanseatic city and the world of Northern Germany. Liebermann wrote to Bode in 1890: "I made two pastels, which I fear have become too 'pretty', probably due to the amenity of the people I know here, and especially Dr. Lichtwark" [54]. Liebermann fell in love with the city and perhaps also understood on that occasion that a change in his genre of paintings was long overdue. If the first works of Liebermann were all inspired by landscapes and scenes of life in Belgium and the Netherlands, he understood that his progressive integration into the German artistic life also passed through portraiture. To be given the assignment to portray a famous personality was, in fact, a sign of societal acceptance. In fact, many of the works he carried out between 1890 and 1895 were portraits of highly cultivated people who marked the cultural life of Germany in those years, like the architect Hans Grisebach, his brother Eduard (a literate) and the famous poet, dramatist and novelist Gerhard Hauptmann.

In 1891 Liebermann began working as a portrayer; he did it precisely with the work that eventually proved his most tormented one, i.e. the portrait of Carl Friedrich Petersen, the Lord Mayor of Hamburg. Lichtwark made sure he would get this first important commission. The iconographic model that inspired Liebermann was the one of Frans Hals, also because the mayor had to be portrayed in a historic costume. When he received the photograph from which he should have painted the portrait, the artist was excited. He wrote to Lichtwark: "First of all: to each lord his honour! As to the photograph of his excellency (or has he another title?) the mayor of Hamburg: he has a really magnificent head and Franz Hals would have made this an eminent portrait. The costume - although in the photo it seems a little too emphatic - is also of great pictorial quality and the lord has indeed a right to be proud of his legs. In short, if it ever happened that a painter is not able to deliver anything decent out of it, this would certainly not depend on the model. The man seems full of energy, could also be a general, is certainly not afraid of anyone, a man of value, must be strong and simply great, like Franz Hals has drawn his people in guild portraits. (...) It must become a solid work” [55].

Liebermann considered this portrait a real quantum leap in his painting. And yet, this portrait was not due to become a success. He wrote to Kollmann in September 1891, telling about the compliments he had received from Bode, but also about his concerns about the silence of the authorities in Hamburg. He also wrote that he had seen again the picture after a few months, and have thought that he could make a few tweaks to make the relationship between figure and ground more harmonious [56]. He did not know yet that the mayor's wife was really upset. She simply hated the portrait (we will never know the raisons). As a result, the mayor himself was angry and even the whole city council was rising up against the portrait, in order to defend him. Ten days later, Kollmann informed Liebermann from Munich about what was happening in the Hanseatic city. The first reaction was nonchalant: "This is not a family portrait" [57]. Therefore, the painter was sure it would not be the wife to do the final judgment. "An old man of 83, almost blind, along with a banker, a coffee trader, Mrs. de Boor and Ms Vilma Parlaghy [a Hungarian painter] do not seem to me the most competent court to judge on my qualities" [58].

And yet, Liebermann underestimated the problem: with the exception of Lichtwark, who nevertheless was in need not to break his ties with the local power system, the whole Hamburg was convinced of the necessity to find an arrangement to never display the work to the public. The painting was now owned by the Kunsthalle, and the Committee of the Hamburg gallery, although chaired by a friend, had the legal power to oppose that the picture would be exhibited. Moreover, whenever it came to deciding whether to expose it or not outside Hamburg, the council of the Gallery was careful to also obtain in advance the consent of the family of the mayor, who meanwhile was very sick. Then arose a real guerrilla between the board of the museum and the painter, with Liebermann  desperately seeking to promote his work, which nobody could admiree in Hamburg. In 1892, Liebermann got the authorisation to exhibit the painting at the inaugural show of the Group of XI in Berlin, probably because it was considered a small exhibition [59]. To this end, the portrait was sent him back from the Hamburg Kunsthalle to Berlin, and ended up back in the artist’s atelier, where it was seen, among others, by the critic and art historian Julius Elias [60]. In 1893 the painter required a new authorization, this time for an exhibition in Paris: the Kunsthalle council agreed again, however on the condition not to disclose the name of the portrayed personality, because it would create political problems. It was in fact not appropriate to display a modern German politician in a historic costume [61]. This is clearly a contradiction: the original mandate to the painter included the task of representing the mayor in an historical costume. The title should be: "Portrait of a man in the costume of the senators of the free city of Hamburg" [62].

As usual, Liebermann’s paintings had great success in Paris, so that the artist could write to Lichtwark: "Did you see that the painting did not create a revolt in Paris?" [63]. The director of the Kunsthalle was indeed in Paris in those days and confirmed: "The picture here has a prodigious effect. I wish you could see it. If I could offer so a beautiful light and a so convenient distance [in Hamburg]..." [64]. Liebermann then asked a third authorization, this time to display the picture in the first exhibition of the Munich Secession. Lichtwark hoped the Parisian success would encourage the Council of the art gallery and the mayor of the family to agree [65], but in August 1893 he had to inform the friend painter of the first of a long series of refusals: the council was afraid of what the press might write [66]. The painting, which was already in Munich for the exhibition, had to be withdrawn [67]. As a form of compensation, the Commission decided to permanently exhibit the painting within the Kunsthalle, in a well-lit room [68]. In 1894 – as Lichtwark wrote - also the eldest son of the mayor went to see the portrait, and he could not find anything it would displease him; many members of the Hamburg Senate said they could not follow the ostracism of the relatives against the painting [69]. And yet, when Liebermann required to bring the portrait with him to the first Venice Biennale, he received a rejection: the Committee confirmed that it was not a representation to be considered as worthy of a mayor of Hamburg [70]; the picture would be exposed in Venice only for the XIII Biennale in 1922. All these vicissitudes induced Liebermann to be very cautious in accepting requests of personality portraits: Lichtwark (who somehow felt guilty) gave him the opportunity to paint the portraits of eminent personalities like the historians Theodor Mommsen and Ernst Curtius, but the painter declined [71]. From now on he preferred to portray just friends attending the same literary and artistic circles.

For Liebermann all these difficulties were often lived in terms of a personal failure. Lichtwark tried several times to explain to Liebermann the political context: "Do not judge our situation on the basis of personal experiences. The core is good. With us are the young people, who are being educated by your art. (...) It is a problem that will be solved with time" [72]. "The situation, in itself and by itself is really hard, and now the serious disease of the elderly lord adds a further complication. It is not just a specific case, that you could be treated in isolation, but also the position of our institution [the Kunsthalle] in a society that must be educated and conquered to art. If I am insisting now and throwing myself into the battle, then I might protract the process towards the long term; if I succeed, instead, to checkmate the opponents not only on the basis of the substance, but also with a completely correct management of the procedure, then we will have won. I intend to do that. And to this end I need your patience and your support. Until I will be able to solve the problem once and for all, what I hope to achieve by autumn [the letter is of June 1982], it seems wrong to expose a painting which here has not yet been seen by anyone, creating new upheavals of which no one can predict the consequences" [73]. "You know that I am very close to the elderly gentleman, and that I am a friend of the family. That the painting has not been successful with both the portrayed and his relatives (as it would have happened with any ordinary work) was predictable because of its quality. (...) That in our committee, which consists almost entirely of old men, a young work of art is not received with enthusiasm should not offend you or me. (...) I am however convinced that an exhibition in Munich will be approved next year" [74].

The Group of XI and the Munich Secession

Fig. 6) Protocol of the first meeting of the association of the eleven.
At the top, on the right, the signature of Max Liebermann.

On 27 February 1892 Liebermann announced to his agent, Albert Kollmann, the establishment in Berlin of the Group of XI, requesting that he would send him some paintings in his possession to Berlin, so that they would be exposed on that occasion [75]. Liebermann was also member of the Secession of Munich (created in the same year). The two parallel initiatives represented the first case of revolt of anti-academic painters in Germany. We already talked about it, in this blog, when reviewing the Life of Walter Leistikow, an essay by Lovis Corinth, published by Bruno Cassirer in 1910. Again, the influence of the artistic life of Flanders and France was important; this was the region offering the benchmark for action. Already in 1882, Liebermann had become the fifteenth member of the Group of XV in France, while the Group of XX had been created in Brussels the same year. The German painter wrote to the Viennese Richard Graul, art historian and director of numerous magazines, to announce the exhibition of the XI, which had been opened in Berlin on the day before [76]. It is not clear whether the artist really believed in these initiatives; referring to the Secession of Munich he wrote to the art critic and art historian Julius Elias, in January 1893, to be "an unrepentant sceptical and pessimistic. The mountains will have the pains of labour, a ridiculous mouse will be born. I hope to be wrong. We'll see" [77].

But, a few weeks later, the tone changed and becomes combative: in a letter in French to Jan Veth he wrote: "My dear friend, you know that last year a similar split to the one in Paris took place between the German artists. All foreign artists – also you, Israëls, Mesdag, etc. - are part of our Secession and all would be well, were it not the case that the Bavarian government in Munich, which is in the hands of the clergy, is against us. We would not care at all about the government, but what is important is that the building where shows are done in Munich is granted to the other side of the artists. They (the old and the discounted artists, like Defregger and Grützer) will do a show as usual and will ask a certain Bartels to invite you to be part of it. Piglhein, the president of the secessionists, has just asked me to appeal to you to please remain faithful to us. He asked you to use your influence with your colleagues, to make sure they would act likewise. We will do another show in Munich or in Berlin and we are counting on you and on all men of talent. We do not care if the artist follows the new school or another one; we are not concerned with anything other than his talent. I wrote to the same effect to the elderly Israëls (of which I received the portrait, which you painted for the goodness of Schorer, and which I find really well done) and I hope that the Dutch will not join the old feebles. No need to say that you will not have to say nothing to Bartels of what I am writing. It is completely confidential" [78]. In 1893, Liebermann finally wrote to Lichtwark that Piglhein had visited him in Berlin in an attempt to create "a common path for all German progressive artists. Unfortunately this did not fly, I fear for mutual jealousies. And yet it is an interesting idea" [79].  Further six years had still to pass before the creation of the Berlin Secession. Meanwhile the group of XI exhibited in Hamburg [80], where Liebermann obtained great success [81].

The exhibition of Edvard Munch in Berlin in 1892.

One of the first initiatives of the Group of XI, and in particular of Walter Leistikow, was to organizing a personal exhibition of Edvard Munch at the Kunstverein (Art association) in Berlin in November 1892. When Leistikow met Munch in Copenhagen, he remained fascinated by his art, so different from that of his contemporaries, and therefore organized an exhibition for him in the German capital. The scandal was such that the academic authorities of the city closed it only a few days after, first changing the statutes of the Kunstverein and then imposing a majority vote.

From a stylistic point of view, I would personally exclude that Liebermann had much sympathy for the Norwegian artist. Indeed, when requested to give a personal opinion by the art critic Maximilian Harden, he decided to skirt the issue [82], although his letters usually contain distinct and precise judgments about his colleagues: "As for the Munch case, I will be glad to express my ideas to you, but in words, because the pen is too an unusual mean, and therefore it is difficult to use. Etc..."  [83] And yet the question of principle is very clear: after Anton von Werner had convened an extraordinary meeting to immediately suspend the exhibition, Liebermann collected the signatures of 48 artists who signed an open letter condemning the closure, siding on a minority position. The letter did not defend per se the artistic production of Munch, but rejected the procedure by which the invitation to Munch, previously decided by a committee of the Kunstverein in accordance with the appropriate procedures, had been withdrawn by authorities without the consense of the organisers [84]. The first tome of the Letters also contained the list of the 107 members who made up the majority and supported von Werner [85]. Paradoxically, these developments made Munch famous in Germany and created among the young painters the myth of a radical art, repressed by the power. Years later, this myth will be the reference of the expressionists of the Bridge group (Brücke) against Liebermann himself.

War with the Philistines!

Fig. 7) A cover page of the magazine Pan in 1895

In June 1894 Liebermann wrote to the landscape painter Otto Feld (1860-1931), announcing the forthcoming publication of a new assault magazine: the journal Pan, directed by Otto Julius Bierbaum and Julius Meier-Graefe. "The motto must be: against the Philistines" [86]. He informed the writer Eduard Grisebach (1848-1904) on a forthcoming preparatory meeting at the Kunstverein in Berlin: "There will be a fierce battle against the Philistines art, like Eschke, Sichel and companions. Koepping, Skarbina, Hans Herrmann and I will make, hopefully successfully, an effort to break the mediocrity of the majority" [87].

Although there are no statements to this effect in the letters, the main work of 1894, namely Marching farmer, seemed to mark a style shift towards less descriptive and more impressionistic forms, while continuing to be a Dutch rural theme (as usual, the work was painted in Zandvoort, one of the privileged locations for summer holidays). And exactly in 1895, the goal "to make appetizing impressionism to the public" appeared for the first time in a letter to Lichtwark [88]. Liebermann was proud of his new painting: he described it to Veth [89] and submitted it that year in Paris at the National Society of Fine Arts, receiving great compliments from Puvis de Chavannes and other French artists [90].

Italy's discovery

The bond between Liebermann, Northern Europe and France is clear. Instead, his encounter with Italy was hesitant. The painter did not make the classical educational trip (Grand Tour) which most foreign painters did in our country, and did not feel any attraction to the classical world. This is clear, in passing, when he wrote to the art historian Richard Graul, who was based in Florence: "The fear of being disgusted by my work in Italy has kept me away from the country of art par excellence" [91]. Another clue is his judgment of Böcklin and Klinger, two contemporary artists who felt great attraction, albeit with different sensitivity, towards the classics: he considered them "great talents, but their art is not new and is out of step with our times" [92].

And yet a journey of a few weeks in Florence led him to revise his opinion. In a first letter of 21 April 1893 to the art historian Robert Dohme (director of Berlin's art collections) wrote: "What I have seen so far confirms me here now in my artistic conviction that only the nature, properly scrutinized, leads to art. This is proven by Giotto, Masaccio and Donatello. Instead, the greatest genius, Michelangelo, and all the masterpieces in the Pitti or the Uffizi did not enchant me as much as Botticelli or the small Tobia with three angels" [93].  He was referring to a painting by Francesco Botticini, confirming that often also minor works may conquer the enthusiasm of the visitors. And in mid-May he confessed to her sister Anna: "I also liked Florence, although I am considered the hardened anti-Italian, and yesterday, when leaving, I was really sad. (...) Tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, we will go to Milan to pay for a one-day visit to my honourable colleague Leonardo. I know that the Last Supper has to be very damaged, but I am a hard guy: I prefer really deteriorated frescos by Leonardo, Giotto and Piero della Francesca - your daughters can try to localise them on Burckhardt – rather than intact works by Anton von Werner, or Carl Becker" [94].

Upon returning, he took stock to Lichtwark: "As for the trip to Italy, I come back like St. Paul after his conversion. What I saw has strengthened my ideas about art. Of course I knew that Giotto, Donatello, Luca della Robbia were the great realists, but I realized that the fourteenth century had already shared our efforts in painting, by looking the frescoes of Piero della Francesca in Arezzo or in the Brancacci Chapel. The canvases of Masaccio is what I liked most. And how much I have been impressed by the Quattrocentisti and even the artists from Trecento! As to the Cinquecentisti, from the academy professor Fra Bartolomeo, I find are just experts in academic art" [95].

Fig. 8) The prizes of the first Biennale of 1895

Not surprisingly, Liebermann agreed to be involved in the committee of the first Venice Biennale of 1895, as announced in Lichtwark in February 1895: "In Venice flourishes a new and wonderful Italian art"  [96]. He was part of the jury in 1897 and also in 1899. It was an attitude in line with his view that the relationship with the art world of other countries is always a comparison with contemporary art and the politics of art. He also received a prize of 5,000 lire, a sum of 15,000 euro approximately at the present day, for his portrayal of the writer Gerhart Hauptmann, but decided to devolve it as a charity for needy artists in Venice [97].

Read the review of Volume Two

NOTES

[1] This is the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), or Federal agency for research support, and the Hermann Reemtsma Foundation of Hamburg.

[2] See http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n2009013423/ .

[3] Liebermann Max – Siebzig Briefe, edited by Franz Landsberger, Berlin, Schocken Verlag, 1937, 86 pages.

[4] Liebermann Max – Briefe, edited by Franz Landsberger andd Ernst Volker Braun, Stoccarda, G. Hatje, 1994, 81 pages.

[5] Lichtwark, Alfred - Briefe an Max Liebermann, edited by Carl Schellenberg, Hamburg, J. Trautmann, 1947, 349 pages.

[6] Pflugmacher, Birgit - Der Briefwechsel zwischen Alfred Lichtwark und Max Liebermann, Hildesheim, Olms, 2003, 507 pages.

[7] Liebermann, Max - Briefe. Volume 1, 1869-1895, Baden-Baden, Deutscher Wissenschaftsverlag, 2011, 591 pages. Quotation at page 224.

[8] Liebermann, Max - Die Phantasie in der Malerei, Berlin, Bruno Cassirer, 1916, 63 pages.

[9] Liebermann, Max - Gesammelte Schriften, Berlin, Bruno Cassirer, 1922, 269 pages.

[10] Liebermann, Max - Gesammelte Schriften, Bremen, Europäischer Hochschulverlag, 2010, 200 pages.

[11] Liebermann, Max - Briefe. Volume 1, (quoted) ..., p. 29.

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