The Forgotten Art of Max Liebermann
1964; College Art Association; Volume: 23; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/00043249.1964.10794526
ISSN2325-5307
Autores ResumoWere it not for Germany's Realists and Secessionists, there would be nothing to fill the gap between the generations of Arnold Boecklin and Emil Nolde, between Romanticism and Expressionism. Oddly, German art has no equivalent to the French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. It is incorrect to speak of Max Liebermann and his fellow-Secessionists as “German Impressionists,” though this is done frequently by historians. The Spectrum Palette was not used by Max Liebermann and his associates who have in common with the French Luminists only plain air painting which practice after all was pioneered by the Barbizon School. Misunderstanding has often led writers to deal unfairly with the German school of the end of the 19th century, and, in particular, with its chef d'ecole. Werner Haftmann is, perhaps, Liebermann's harshest critic. In Painting in the Twentieth Century, he admits that Liebermann, as well as his friends Slevogt and Corinth, were “excellent painters,” but he also charges that they were “insensitive to the dynamic forces of the epoch and lacked the esprit critique which helps new ideas to take shape quickly and surely.” He implies that Liebermann (born in 1847!) should have abandoned his manner of painting and joined, first the Bruecke, then the Blaue Reiter, thereafter the Neue Sachlichkeit, and so forth (for Liebermann lived to the year 1935, continuing to paint until the very end). Thus he could have avoided being labeled a “reactionary” (this is the term actually used by Haftmann). But this is nonsense. One must not demand of an artist that he always be “up-to-date“, all we must ask him to be is—true to his own vision, to his ideals (which Liebermann certainly was).
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