ENGAGEMENT WITH THE INTERNATIONAL AVANT-GARDES AROUND THE YEAR 1900
The artists of »Brücke« and »Blauer Reiter« came into contact through contemporary exhibitions, artists’ trips, publications and art journals with the forerunners of Modern Art: Vincent van Gogh, Edvard Munch, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cézanne or Pablo Picasso. The unconventional idiom of form and colour of these trailblazers were a revelation and at the same time a breakthrough. Their inspiration had a direct influence on the art of the protagonists of both groups.
In their respective early works the profound influence of van Gogh’s late Impressionism is palpable: The rendering of the artists’ surroundings with special lighting effects captured in the mood of the moment. A manner of painting full of contrasts and intensive colours predominated, with visible brush marks or tracks of the spatula, leading to the dissolution of forms.
The transition from an impressionist to an expressionist manner of painting and thus to an increasing autonomy of colour dissociated from the object is especially evident in the two depictions of female nudes by Franz Marc and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. The simplification of shapes, flat application of paint and sprightly lines reveal a debt to Henri Matisse, one of the pioneers of Classical Modernism and a representative of Fauvism.
EXPRESSIONIST AGENDA
The »Brücke« was inaugurated in June 1905 in Dresden as an artists’ alliance. Its members wanted to break with the strictures of academic painting and discover new artistic pathways to explore by rendering the impetus for their creative practice in an “immediate and genuine” manner. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner carved the programme of the group in a short woodcut manifest in 1906. The »Blauer Reiter«, in turn, arose from the »Neue Künstlervereinigung München« at the close of 1911 and was a more loose alliance of like-minded artists without fixed common objectives. Their comprehensive almanac, published by the Piper Verlag in May 1912, encompassed art reproductions and articles about contemporary European avant-garde art trends that were interrelated with Gothic works or non-European cultures as well with music. The aim was to accord equal status to multi-facetted art forms spanning the epochs and continents in which they had become embedded.
THE IMAGE OF WOMAN IN »BRÜCKE« AND »BLAUER REITER«
In contrast to the artists of the »Blauer Reiter«, from the very beginning the »Brücke« made unconventional works based on nude models – mainly female – in studio or outdoors. The female nude was the key motif in all techniques. A collective style developed, which sometimes causes confusion when trying to attribute the works correctly. In recent years the fact that there were also underage girls among the models has repeatedly been a matter of critical debate. Women in the »Brücke« circle only played an active role in the support and promotion network. In the »Blauer Reiter« women maintained an important position as protagonists in their own right, although in art history and reception they were overshadowed by the male artists for a considerable time.
COMBINING ART AND LIFE: STUDIO AND STILL LIFE
The members of the »Brücke« wanted to unite art and life, in keeping with the life-reform (Lebensreform) movement of around 1900. This aspiration led them to furnish their studios as living and work spaces, complete with their own works, painted and embroidered textile hangings, their own hand-made furniture as well as mainly wood sculptures and utility items – in keeping with the idea of a total art work or Gesamtkunstwerk.
The members of the »Blauer Reiter« were trained artists, who clearly envisaged more ambitious horizons for their art; their practice was grounded to a greater extent in theory and they enjoyed more individual autonomy. Their studios, even though they also filled these with their own art or craft objects and colourfully painted furniture, were more strictly separated from their living quarters.
The motif of the still life was popular with both groups: as an accompaniment for portraits or based on direct observations made in their immediate lived environment. The colour scheme was rich in contrasts, as befitted an expressionist style. Moreover a fascination with “exotic” motifs made its presence felt in the works of the »Brücke«. Works by the »Blauer Reiter« more often included objects from folk art such as reverse glass paintings, some of which came from their own collections.
DIVERSITY OF ARTISTIC MATERIALITY
The recognition of the intrinsic value of colour as an expressive device and the ensuing dissociation from the object is crucial in Expressionism. The members of both artists’ groups engaged with traditional as well as contemporary art and colour theories and exchanged stimulating new artistic and technical discoveries in their search for new types of expression. Overall, the deliberate and innovative use of materials and different techniques played an increasingly important part. The artists experimented among other things with materials and included the picture support in their compositions; they largely left their paintings unvarnished, which intensified the impact of the colours.
The artistic design of utility items and their living- and work spaces was common to both groups. Schmidt-Rottluff was especially significant here in view of the multitude and diversity of his craft works made of the most diverse materials. In contrast to the »Brücke«, the members of the »Blauer Reiter« were also inspired by Russian and regional folk art, especially by examples of Bavarian reverse glass painting from the 18th and 19th centuries with their flat coloured planes and simple formal idiom. Gabriele Münter was taught the traditional technique by Heinrich Rambold in Murnau in 1909 and went on to teach it to her colleagues.
THE ROLE OF GRAPHIC ART IN »BRÜCKE« AND »BLAUER REITER«
Alongside painting, graphic techniques were important for both artists’ groups and also for understanding their individual and collective stylistic developments. The »Brücke« artists were fascinated by woodcut techniques, in line with their interest in the art of the Late Middle Ages and Albrecht Dürer. Their experience with this particular material shaped a corresponding aesthetic approach involving the simplification of shapes and flattening of the image into two-dimensional planes, which in turn had an effect on the other art techniques they employed. The linocut too, requiring a relief printing process as in woodcuts, was popular mainly with the artists of the »Blauer Reiter«. In early works the influence of Japanese woodblock prints and the stylistic elements of Symbolism and Art Nouveau are evident. For the artists, not only the selection of the image was important, but also the choice of paper, depending on its make and colourful potential. They experimented with the most diverse materials and techniques.
For the artists, printing as a process of reproduction was also important for marketing, whether for the group or the individual. The »Brücke« in particular put considerable effort into prints for sale and in connection with exhibitions, including annual editions, membership cards and directories as well as posters. Publications such as Herwarth Walden’s journal Der Sturm and his eponymous gallery were also decisive for the dissemination of the graphic art of both groups.
ARTISTIC INSPIRATIONS: NATURE AND ANIMALS
Landscape was a popular motif in the paintings of both the »Brücke« and »Blauer Reiter«. Nature and the countryside have always offered a retreat and served as a focus of yearning, as well as an inspiration for artistic creativity, whether collectively or alone. Moving on from early impressionist painting concepts, these landscapes captivate the viewer on account of their strong vibrant colours and planar expanses. Whereas the »Brücke« artists primarily went on trips to the Moritzburg Lakes and the North Sea and Baltic coasts, the protagonists of the »Blauer Reiter« preferred the Alpine foothills to the south of Munich. Murnau am Staffelsee played a special role here, as this venue was where Gabriele Münter, Wassily Kandinsky, Marianne von Werefkin and Alexej von Jawlensky gathered from 1908. The time spent together there was the starting point for an artistic change which would ultimately lead to the development of expressionist positions. In August 1909 Münter bought a house in Murnau, which became a second home for herself and Kandinsky until 1914 and functioned as an important meeting place for the »Blauer Reiter«.
From 1904/05, Franz Marc specialized in animal motifs which he used in conjunction with ideas of a natural paradise and harmony. At first he kept close to nature in his depictions. His acquaintance with August Macke in 1910 prompted him to depart increasingly from the colour of the object in question and experiment with the interplay of different colours and their symbolic implications. This approach was enhanced by a simplification of shapes and intensification of the colour scheme, which bound the creatures rhythmically to their abstract surroundings.
ARTISTIC INSPIRATIONS: BIG CITY, CABARET AND INDUSTRY
For both groups of artists the big cities in Germany played an important role in terms of networking and exhibitions, and sometimes also provided opportunities for further education. While the »Brücke« artists were based in the Baroque city of Dresden at first, the protagonists of the »Blauer Reiter« were drawn to the German art metropolis of Munich, which, with its academy for women, offered artistic training for women such as Gabriele Münter or Maria Marc, née Franck.
Following Max Pechstein’s move to Berlin in 1908, at the end of 1911 Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff also relocated to this city, the fastest growing in Europe at the time. The move loosened their bonds, however, and it was not long before their collective style broke down into individual styles.
Throughout the heydays of the groups’ activities the big cities offered a suitable stage for diverse artistic narratives. Cabaret and the circus, above all, became central topoi of the unconventional flair of the avant-garde. Dancers, acrobats and clowns became actors and actresses on the picture planes. Along with motifs from the entertainment sector, the artists also highlighted the industrialization that was gathering pace at that time.
ARTISTIC INSPIRATIONS: NON-EUROPEAN ART AND CULTURE
The artists of the »Brücke« and »Blauer Reiter« lived and worked in an era when the German Empire was one of the largest colonial powers in Europe, third only to Great Britain and France. The populations of the colonies were subjected to everyday oppression, exploitation of resources, military operations and genocide. So-called “human zoos” (“Völkerschau”), which some of the »Brücke« artists also attended, amounted to demeaning public displays of people from non-European cultures, presenting a romanticized image of a supposedly “primitive” natural state. Utility and ritual objects were shown in ethnological museums and served the artists as prototypes.
Non-European cultures as a source of inspiration were romanticized as examples of a supposedly primitive and pristine human culture, and this was also the perspective of the »Brücke« and »Blauer Reiter«. From today’s point of view such an approach, which denies or plays down the crimes of those times against a historical backdrop of colonial exploitation, is problematic. Certain presentations and categorizations must be critically scrutinized. The staging of the dark side went unquestioned and was a theme addressed neither by the media, nor by art. Rather, the idea of an earthly paradise of one’s dreams was transposed in part to the artists’ own way of life and the design of studios and living quarters, and an apparently “genuine” stereotypical or exotic visual idiom was adopted. Apart for Emil Nolde and Max Pechstein, who travelled to German colonial territories such as Papua New Guinea or Palau, the artists encountered these people and objects with colonial context only in Germany.
THE ORIENTATION TOWARDS ABSTRACTION IN THE »BLAUER REITER« MOVEMENT
Whereas the artists of the »Brücke« always remained faithful to a figurative rendering, members of »Blauer Reiter« approached more and more closely to abstraction in their treatment of pictorial motifs, tending towards a complete dissolution of forms and perspectival depth. A crucial factor in this respect was their interest in French Cubism with its emphasis on geometry, and in Italian Futurism with its sense of movement fostered by interlocking lines and shapes and fragmented depictions of objects.
In the late works of Franz Marc and August Macke the stylistic principles of Robert Delaunay are also evident: the pictorial space is reduced to flat planes by way of geometrical and amorphous shapes. Delaunay’s appreciation of the autonomy of colour was also an inspiration for Paul Klee. Macke, Klee and Louis Moilliet travelled together to Tunisia in April 1914, a study tour that proved to be decisive for Klee’s painting in colour, after a period with the »Blauer Reiter« in which he had been preoccupied almost exclusively with graphic works.
Whereas Klee, Macke and Marc always oscillated between the abstract and the figurative in their depictions, Wassily Kandinsky took the biggest steps towards abstraction. Encouraged by the novel music of Arnold Schönberg he strove to sketch a connection between art and music in order to get a grip on the Geistige in der Kunst, as his important publication of 1912 was called.
