When the exhibition opened in April this year, I had already received a message on one of my art sites about Paula Modersohn-Becker. (1876-1907)An artist I knew absolutely nothing about. The title itself was intriguing « An Intensely Artistic Eye » or in French « L’Intensité du Regard ». The image used for the exhibition certainly defined that. Over the following weeks and probably well into May, I met quite a few people who said they had seen the exhibition, but it was « uninteresting » and they were sure that I wouldn’t like it. Most of these friends know my taste in art so l decided against it. The weeks roll by. The other day I was hesitating about which exhibition I would go to. That face looked at me again from my computer. I was going to see THAT exhibition.
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| Portrait of a young girl, fingers spread on her chest : 1905 |
After training in Berlin, Paula Modersohn-Becker joined the artists' colony at Worpswede in northern Germany, but soon left to seek inspiration elsewhere. Fascinated by Paris and the avant-garde movements of the early 20th century, she stayed there often and got to know the artists she admired, among them Rodin, Cézanne, Gauguin, Douanier Rousseau, Picasso and Matisse. This still continues to surprise me that so many of these people are alive at the same time. And now another one which I must learn some more about.
Her work is modern and ahead of her time, and displays a boldly personal aesthetic. If her subjects – including self-portraits, mothers and children, landscapes and still lifes – are typical of the period, her way of addressing them is eminently original. Her works stand out for a powerfully expressive use of colour, extreme sensitivity and an astonishing capacity to capture the very essence of her models. A number of her paintings considered excessively avant-garde were included in the "Degenerate Art" exhibition organized by the Nazis in Munich in 1937.
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| Two nude little girls, one standing the other on her knees in front of poppies : 1906 |
Again, a surprise as I was sure that l knew most of the « degenerate » artists and yet I had never come across Modersohn-Becker
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| Self portrait with amber necklace - 1905 |
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| Naked Italian holding a lifted plate -1906 |
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| Young girl playing the flute...1905 |
In numerous self-portraits she asserts her identity as a woman, portraying herself intimately and without complacency. The eyes of her models stare out at you. Questioning you. Or they did me. I gather too that she was one of the first woman to paint nude women and those who seemed to look « normal » rather than beauties lying back and saying « look at me ».
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| Mother lying down with a child - 1906 |
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| Profile of Young native girl standing...1899 |
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| Little girl kneeling, with a stork :1906-07 |
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| Little girl sitting with folded legs : 1904 |
There is even one photo where you would assume that she is pregnant. But no. She was no longer living with her husband and yet a year after this painting she gave birth to a little girl. What is so dramatic is that Paula died at 31 following an obscure illness.
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| Self portrait on the 6th anniversary of her wedding - 1906 |
I didn’t like her still life nor her landscapes. Her portraits though are somehow startling. Hypnotic ! Maybe I’m wrong but she and fellow-artists Picasso and Matisse introduced the world to modernism at the start of the twentieth century. I must learn more about her.
Commentaires
"inégal". We really enjoyed the first rooms with the portraits of children but thought there were too many self - portraits in the last room