Hans Grundig. [Letters of an artist: 1926-1957]. Part Three

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German Artists' Writings in the XX Century - 16

Hans Grundig
[Letters of an artist: 1926-1957]
Künstlerbriefe aus den Jahren 1926 bis 1957

Prefaced and edited by Bernhard Wächter

Rudolstadt, VEB Greifenverlag, 1966

Review by Francesco Mazzaferro. Part Three

[Original Version: February 2018 - New Version: April 2019]

Fig. 6) The first edition of  Faces and history, the memoirs of Lea Grundig, published in 1958 in East Berlin by Dietz Verlag. The cover displays the duplicate image of the bucking horse already reproduced on the cover of Hans Grundig's memoirs in 1957.

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The activity at the Dresden Academy and the participation in the aesthetic debate

The renewed activity of the Dresden Academy absorbed Grundig totally, and limited the time he could devote in person to painting, although he had an available studio ("I have my studio in my academy, but I live with my good mother” [82]). The palace of the Academy of Fine Arts, located on the noble bank of the Elbe, was one of the very few historic buildings in Dresden which miraculously remained almost intact after the infernal bombardment and the subsequent fire in the city, but everything needed to be repaired. Grundig dedicated himself to the Academy with total commitment since March 1946, when he wrote to his wife: "I am rebuilding the Academy, and it is not long before the official reopening”.  [83]. "Lea, I will be the director of the Dresden Academy and I'm really delighted. In addition to our work as artists, the artistic education of the new generations, of young people is the most important thing. It is from here that the new path is originating. And, for this, you would be so important. Come soon! I will ask the regional administration to help you get the expatriation from Palestine” [84]. Hans told his wife that he had recruited the new teachers for the Academy, and that he could count now on Wilhelm Lachnit (1899-1962), Reinhold Langner (1905-1957), Hans Theo Richter (1902-1969) and Wilhelm Rudolph (1889- 1982) [85]. As he ensured Lea, she had been reserved the position of professor of graphic art [86].

However, the artist's mission was not limited to organizing teaching for future generations, but also involved the commitment to keep alive the debate among contemporary artists: "Art issues are discussed, under the impulse of our exhibitions. Whether it is expressionism, naturalism or realistic representation, everything simmers. Participation is general, and above all our young people are interested in transforming what is incomprehensible into objective truth. I am living in a circle of people who take a position with extreme vivacity on every issue that today proves necessary” [87]. Grundig seemed to capture positive aspects in all art streams, provided they also gave an aesthetic expression to a political will: "And now I am here in front of a variety of artistic energies, of a range of partial truths and I am seeking the necessary synthesis. Because - whether art is abstract or realistic or derives from an impression or a visionary internal image - one thing is necessary: to find the strong and convincing expression of our will, concerning our social relationships" [88]. Sometimes Hans wrote about himself and his companions using tones of absolute exaltation: "We are like snakes, the symbol of knowledge, of wisdom. We are changing skin, we are the ever active renewal of our life, we are the eternal preachers in the desert of practise, of the condition that we violate, that we want to overcome, in order to finally bring some light" [89].

However, Hans was certainly not neutral (nor could one expect it from him, thinking of his biography). In his view, every aesthetic debate with the exponents of other tendencies had to be directed, above all, to validate the reasons for realism and to make them prevail over any attempt at an abstract vision of the world: "Today there is much discussion on abstract art, on Klee, Kandinsky. Kokoschka is torn to pieces, he who had torn the world apart, almost without realizing it. (...) Our common enemy is the fragmentation of the world into pieces, which are like decals of reality, to strip off that world of its profound contexts. We do not want to be a narcotic for marginalized from life, but we do not even want to cover abysses with cotton and silk veils, to design guardian angels that are the result of conscious social lies of certain circles. We are and we want to be realistic in the truth, standard-bearer of that truth that we can recognize. We do not want to hide anything, but show everything, including the beauty of life: this is what we crave with the longing of our hearts and for which we fight with all our means” [90].

“I'm working on a report about realism in art. I have an analytical approach. I refer to all the manifestations of the past, starting with romanticism and moving on to impressionism up to the abstract art of our days. I am trying to start from social developments, in order to explain the different streams, and to identify internal rules that explain them. In this research I have come to particular conclusions. For example: Romanticism (Schwind, Spitzweg) has many things in common with the abstract art of a Klee, Feininger and others. Both developments represent an escape from the concrete and real life of society. In one case, an escape into the good old times. In the other, an escape into an overcompensated individuality. Therefore, both streams cannot develop further, as the historical example of romanticism shows. Nothing significant has arisen on Schwind's track. On the contrary, it is Courbet who began the development of a new vision based on the real world and 19th century technique” [91].

It is interesting to note that the critical position of Hans and Lea went so far as to disapprove aesthetic positions which, in Western Europe, were traditionally linked to communism, such as surrealism. In a letter to Lea of November 10, 1946, Hans wrote: "Dear Lea, my brunette! ... Your position on abstract art, on surrealism is also mine. Like you, I also see it as the artistic expression of a world and of a general concept that fall apart” [92]. The only contemporaries in the Western world to receive Hans's approval were Picasso and Diego Rivera. "The latter is one of the few similar to Kollwitz. He knows how to represent a whole world, which includes all the elements of art, from the optical element to the abstraction of a Picasso, from whom he also learned a lot. In his genre, Picasso is also a man who has been able to produce a different art, even if it is much more discordant. His experiments show, however, that - while he is an artist who is always in search of something, the experiment for him is not an end in itself, but a means. He seeks first of all the man and thus he also meets the society. The Spanish paintings demonstrate this. Unlike Rivera, who first describes the social element and for which man and society represent a natural, inseparable unity. The majority of the so-called abstract painters have specialized in making absolute one of Picasso’s collateral aspects, or in propagating one of his many experiments as the foundation of a way of seeing world and art” [93].

Grundig and contemporary painting in post-war Dresden

It has already been said that Hans was very concerned about the absence of a generation of painters who would continue the work of artists prior to National Socialism. This was very clear in a letter dated 7 October 1946: "I am ashamed of today's German artists, who leave such a miserable testimony of their humanity. They are arrogant and take pleasure in themselves. It is unbelievable that a feeble woman like you [Lea had defined herself as such in a previous letter] should teach them on what every artist, who claims to be such, is bound to testify. My so beloved soul, you should make them blush with shame if, with all their limitations, they were ever able to understand how insignificant aesthetes and formalists are” [94]. And then he continued: in a city completely reduced to rubble, he had been understanding that people were asking "lightness and harmony: unfortunately, at this moment, I cannot grant them either, for understandable reasons: my entire life was a fight against the barbarism of fascism. In those times they were painting bouquets of flowers and well-ordered landscapes. And yet, none criticizes them for the attitude at that time and they are appreciated more than I am. Being alone is my destiny” [95].

Fig. 7) The Soviet version of the memoirs, published in 1964

Against whom were Grundig's arrows directed? Personally I do not think the artist was referring to artists like George Grosz who, indeed, had completely changed their style from the 1930s, recovering a classicist way of painting (as well as becoming anti-communist in the 1940s, after years of militancy for the Soviet revolution in the 1920s). It is also unlikely that he thought of the new pictorial tendencies of Otto Dix, who had by now shifted to religious art and landscapes, since we know that he dreamed of having him as a teacher at the Dresden Academy. More likely, therefore, he was expressing critical opinions on other artists present in Dresden in those years. The recent conference "Continuity and new beginning: Hans Grundig in Dresden after 1945 " [96], held in 2016, analysed the position of the painter in relation to the new local movements and groups of those years, as for example to the collective group "Das Ufer - Gruppe 1947 Dresdner Künstler" (The shore - Group 1947 of Dresden artists), created by the painters Siegfried Donndorf (1900-1957) and Ewald Schönberg (1882-1949), active – together with about fifteen members - until 1952. It was a movement of artists of the same age as Hans, some of whom had been his companions already in the 1920s, but had then taken refuge in the internal exile during the Nazis. The new collective group aimed to combine a painting based on realism together with one contemplating personal experiences and diluting social criticism, in particular by displaying landscapes, representations of events and even still lives; they intended to create a simple art, understandable to everyone, with social, but non-aggressive and, in many ways, didactic goals. Even if these artists shared the same political reasons, Grundig inevitably had suffered too much to identify himself with their project of a yes socialist, but pacified art.  The fact is that Das Ufer ceased to exist in 1952, when the project of a realistic style of educational art was considered no longer necessary (and all painters were brought back into a single association, the Künstlerverband der DDR, or the League of artists of the German Democratic Republic, under stricter public control).

The debate on art in the Soviet occupation area in 1946

Fig. 8) Maike Steinkamp, Unwelcome inheritance, 2008

The letters testified that, despite contradictions and ambiguities, Dresden’s artistic world in 1946 was in turmoil, and that there were possibilities to express different opinions. Hans Grundig was clearly in favour of a realism-based art, but his work did not preclude the presentation of the opinions of others. Rather than imposing a definition of a new dogmatic communistic orthodoxy, it seems that Grundig hoped in the establishment of an art serving a 'socialistic democracy'. It is certainly worth asking if this was a faithful representation of reality, or if the 1966 edition of the "Letters of an artist 1926-1957" merely represented a historical manipulation. In this regard, the reference work remains Maike Steinkamp's essay "Unwelcome Heritage" [97] dated 2008. According to Ms Steinkamp, while ​​in those years the art of the Stalinist Soviet Union had already been normalized to the theory of socialist realism, the aesthetic debate in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany was very lively. "For younger artists, who were looking for a new artistic expression, modern art defamed by the National Socialists for twelve years as «degenerate» became the centre of very different discussions. Was it necessary to re-establish a link with the artistic traditions prior to 1933? And if so, with which ones? The opinions in this regard were very divergent. Some artists and critics were in favor of a very intense confrontation with the expressive forms of avant-garde art preceding the war. Others feared that a recovery of those elements could mean a restoration of the reactionary forces and expressed themselves in favor of a new orientation of art. And again, some saw in the previous "degenerate" art an outdated direction, even if they recognized a historical significance to it” [98]. Maike Steinkamp made it clear that Grundig was not the only artist preceding the arrival of Nazism, who took on tasks of directing art in communist Germany. Karl Hofer in East Berlin, Conrad Felixmüller in Halle, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff in Chemnitz gathered groups of prominent artists around themselves. The aforementioned Kulturbund zur demokratischen Erneuerung Deutschlands had Hofer as vice-president. Artists such as Max Pechstein (1881-1955) and Otto Nagel (1894-1967), whose destinies subsequently divided both in terms of politics and art literature, were both active in the GDR in this phase. The former, for example, prepared his memoirs to publish them in East Berlin in 1946; their publication was however forbidden by the communist authorities and became possible, only years after their death, in 1960 in West Germany. The second became, instead, president of the Academy of Fine Arts of the GDR in 1962; Nagel had written in the 1930s a novel called "Die weiße Taube oder Das nasse Dreieck" (The White Dove, or The Wet Triangle), hoping of having it published by the publisher Cassirer. The rise to the power of Nazism prevented this to happen. The manuscript was lost at the time when Nagel emigrated from Germany in a hurry, reappeared immediately after the war in the 1940s, but was lost a second time and was finally published by the widow in 1978, in Eastern Germany.

Fig. 9) The memoirs of Max Pechstein published in Wiesbaden in 1960

Fig. 10) Otto Nagel, The novel The white dove, or The wet triangle, published in Halle and Leipzig in 1978

The situation was at any rate ambiguous: whatever margins for discussion may have existed locally in Dresden, Eastern Germany was occupied by the Soviets, who had totalitarian ideas also in the field of aesthetics and were certainly not in favour of cultural openness. Maike Steinkamp explained that, at the political level, the future secretary of the single party (SED) Anton Ackermann stated in February 1946 that any tolerance of aesthetic forms incompatible with the realization of socialism was only temporary and due exclusively to the need to make known the art banned during Nazism. In 1948 the regime proscribed every freedom in the aesthetic discussion and even Hans Grundig had to adapt to these circumstances.

Some final considerations

Most likely, the editor of the Letters of artist 1926-1957 would have deeply disliked this review, which, in many ways, is intentionally selective. In fact, I skipped any reference to the reports in the appendix, i.e. the speeches given by Hans Grundig on official occasions in the post-war period, and - all things considered – I also almost completely ignored the introduction by Bernard Wächter. I did it intentionally, and I tried instead to give a very intimate image of an iconic artist of the German Democratic Republic, an image linked to his deep love for the wife and to the reciprocal exchange of views on art between them. At the end of these pages, it seems to me that (beyond the obvious political passion) many of Grundig's most intransigent positions on aesthetic issues were expressed with the same radicalism, with which almost all the young artists, during XX century, always sought to assert their ideas as inevitably different from the ones of previous generations. In the other part of Germany, for example, abstract artists were trying to prevail on figurative ones, and conducted a very uncompromising and even unfair struggle to this aim. The same radicalism was featured by the secessionists vs. the academics, the Expressionists vs. the secessionists, the avant-garde vs. all the previous art streams, and the new realists vs every avant-garde. In other words, when reading the German artistic literature of the twentieth century, we can find everywhere a lively evidence of a society that has almost never been at peace with itself.

Published in 1966, the letters were never reprinted, unlike the memoirs, which experienced an extraordinary publishing success until the 1980s, when Eastern Germany disappeared. I think it would be useful if a publisher proposed them anew to today's public in a new context, not as a testimony of the communist regime, but of an artist's life: they would reveal the hopes and weaknesses of a man who was confronted with extraordinary difficult situations, and who found in his love for his wife and for painting the strength to overcome them.

NOTES

[82] Grundig, Hans - Künstlerbriefe aus den Jahren 1926 bis 1957. With a foreword and edited by Berngard Wächter Rudolstadt, VEB Greifenverlag, 1966, 167 pages plus sixty tables outside the text. Quotation at page 94.

[83] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p.93.

[84] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p.93.

[85] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p.95.

[86] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p.95.

[87] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p.105.

[88] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p.108.

[89] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p.105.

[90] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p.105.

[91] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), pp.112-113.

[92] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p.114.

[93] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p.115.

[94] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), pp.110-111.

[95] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p.111.

[96] See: https://www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/tagungsberichte-6904.

[97] Steinkamp, Maike - Das unerwünschte Erbe: Die Rezeption "entarteter" Kunst in Kunstkritik, Ausstellungen und Museen der Sowjetischen Besatzungszone und der frühen DDR, Akademie Verlag, 2008, 476 pagine.

[98] Steinkamp, Maike - Das unerwünschte Erbe … (quoted), pp.90-91.