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Internationaler Naturalismus und skandinavische Kunst

1994; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 63; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00233609408604354

1651-2294

Barbara Paul,

European Cultural and National Identity

Summary The artistic situation in late nineteenth‐century Germany ‐ and elsewhere — was comparatively international. From about 1890 works from Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland by artists such as Anna and Michael Ancher, Christian and Oda Krohg, Peder Severin Kroyer, Frits Thaulow, Erik Werenskiold, Richard Bergh, Bruno Liljefors, Anders Zorn, Albert Edelfelt etc. — Edvard Munch has been excluded here — could be seen in exhibitions throughout Germany. The reaction of the critics was in some cases favourable, in others less so. By the 1890s the interest in Scandinavian Naturalism had reached its apex only to be followed by a decline after the turn of the century when French Impressionism ever increasingly came to be equated with so‐called modern art. To establish how Scandinavian painting was received in Germany during the late nineteenth century the following aspects were examined: (I.) the views presented in the main art historical literature of the period (especially those of Richard Muther 1893/94), (II.) the presence of works by Scandinavian artists at large exhibitions (Berlin and Munich), (III.) the situation in the museums (Nationalgalerie, Berlin and the Neue Pinakothek, Munich). On I.: Muther's assessment of Scandinavian painting can be summarized as follows: 1. He stressed that Scandinavian artists owed a great deal to French painting but their approach contains a certain degree of independence. 2. In his characterization of the national artistic identity of each of the Scandinavian countries Muther also reinforced existing prejudices. 3. His cliché‐ridden discussion of Scandinavian female artists and the image of women is typical of the period and is a sexist attitude found in all of Muther's writings. 4. He was the first to both attempt a study of European painting in its entirety and to place Scandinavian painting in an international context. 5. Muther noted that the Scandinavian “Painters of Life”, i.e. the Naturalists, achieved their goal of depicting all aspects of life. 6. Muther's book, which is for the most positive towards Scandinavian art, was extremely influential in Germany during the 1890s. On II.: The image of Scandinavian Naturalism was of course influenced by the presence of such works at exhibitions and their acquisition by museums, events which prompted lively debate in the press and scholarly journals. Around 1890 there was a real interest in the paintings by Scandinavian Naturalists, whose depictions of scenes from everyday life and their way of painting were seen by a new generation of art historians and critics as modernist approach (e.g. by Richard Muther). But critizism was voiced by those conservative nationalist Germans who remained advocates of an idealized concept of art, both in choice of subject matter and its execution (Adolf Rosenberg, Friedrich Pecht, Ludwig Pietsch etc.). The more chauvinistic sought to proclaim nordic art as Germanic and to use it as part of the project designed to establish a new German national art (e.g. Momme Nissen), whereby the propagation of modernity and the search for a national art were by no means mutually exclusive. On III: With regard to museums, ihe situation at Nationalgalerie in Berlin, of which Hugo von Tschudi was director from 1896, shows that paintings by international Naturalists (including Scandinavians) were acquired during the 1890s and hung together with works by the French Impressionists. But shortly after the turn of the century the importance of these works had already diminished. With art historical literature clearly more in favour of French Impressionism and the increasing importance given to qualities of a formal‐aesthetic nature, both international diversity as well as the thematic span of Naturalism, which sought at least partly to argue on a social level, were pushed aside. At the same time priority was given to painting which ‐ supposedly‐ centered around purely self‐reflective issues. Since then, international as well as Scandinavian Naturalism and/or Impressionism (see my article for the distinction between the different artistic “isms") have once more come to “the attention of the world of art, as the number of exhibitions and books of the past few years clearly indicates. Again a number of different reasons can be given. Some scholars hope to improve the image of Scandinavian Naturalism by showing its relationship to French Impressionism, which was continued to enjoy great popularity. Others see their role not just in the reconstruction and analysis of how so‐called Modernism and Avantgarde became established, but also to gain an understanding of the coordinated artistic production of individual countries or the international expression of a particular artistic direction. A number of art historians are presently engaged in revising the longstanding nationalisation of artistic discussion and the exclusion of international Naturalism. However, care must be taken that a Eurocentric viewpoint does not simply replace the national one.