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Musée de Grenoble |
It was quite a day as there are 6 hours of travelling by TGV there and back to Grenoble. Having left very early I was at 11 in the Grenoble Museum to see «Die Brucke».
«Thanks to an outstanding loan of more than 120 leading works coming from the Brücke-Museum in Berlin, and 20 years after the last such event held in Paris, the Musée de Grenoble is presenting an exhibition devoted to the Die Brücke [The Bridge] group, the first German avant-garde movement, which ushered in one of the 20th century's major art tendencies : Expressionism.
Etablished in Dresden in June 1905 by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Fritz Bleyl, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Erich Heckel, who were subsequently joined by Max Pechstein, Emile Nolde, Cuno Amiet and Otto Mueller, this group was defined above all by its rejection of academic art. These artists were influenced by the works of Van Gogh and Munch as much as by the primitive arts, and translated into a style involving dazzling colours and determinedly extravagant graphic work the hectic rhythm of life, the rhythm of the world as it originally was in communion with nature, as well as the rhythm of large cities and their feverish atmosphere.
As the first German avant-garde movement, Die Brücke immediately laid the foundations of an art where the direct expression of emotions took precedence over craft and aesthetics. Pure colours and distorted forms were at the service of exaggerated sensitivities which would give birth to a style that was subsequently called Expressionism.»
All in all, I agree with this. It’s a period along with «Der Blaue Reiter» which I always enjoy. There was a combined exhibition at the Pinocothèque which I saw 5 times last year - but before I started the Blog. My interest of going to Grenoble was to see one of the schools alone. This after all, was the beginning of expressionism.
Somehow I feel that the description above is a little limited. There is an influence of the cubists but what is perhaps more the case, the summers that the group spent in the Moritzburg lakes were quite obviously very «free» with what is termed as the communion with nature. One of the signatures of the Brucke over many years where their nudes. In fact, at times it is not easy to distinguish the work of Heckel or Rottluff. One of the artists I knew little about was Erich Heckel. The proximity of his style with that of Rotluff makes one feel that their friendship was close even though this may not have continued when he returned to Berlin in 1911. I have chosen another image which is not such a look alike.
The other artist which I loved was Otto Mueller. «The Woman in the Boat» 1910-1911 was discovered by the Group and although not exactly the same geometric forms, they loved his use of colour and asked him to join them.
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Otto Mueller - "Woman in a Boat " - 1910 |
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Kirchner "L'Artiste Marcella" - 1910 |
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Pechstein - "Le Maillot Jaune" 1909 |
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Erich Heckel - "Franzi Allongée |
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Kirchner - "Woman in front of a miror "1909 |
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"Women in a Miroir" - Rotluff 1913 ? |
The group folded in 1914, not so long before the first world war. In Berlin at the time, they had a different way of viewing the forthcoming war. Night life or in a rather more melancholic form. The Nazis considered their work as degenerate. Perhaps it was a good thing that they did as in showing this work to a public, the public got to know it and very fortunately it has lived on.
Erich Heckel "La Scéance de lecture" 1913-1914 |
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Kirchner - La Terrasse du café -1914 |
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Otto Mueller - "Couple d'amoureux" 1916 |
There is a collection I want to see in Aix en Provence. Major works from the Frieder Museum: "From Kirchner to Pollock." So, off I’ll go as soon as possible. In fact coming back in the train, I read my Art Magazine cover to cover and discovered that apart from the 5 exhibitions already on my list, there are 15 I want to see before they close in September. Summer could be busy.
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