Gabriele Münter
Gabriele Münter (19 February 1877–19 May 1962) was a German expressionist painter who was at the forefront of the Munich avant-garde in the early 20th century. Artists and writers associated with German Expressionism shared a rebellious attitude (influenced by the writings of Nietzsche) toward the materialism and mores of German imperial and bourgeois society. German Expressionistic art was an exegetic (and at times agonizing) reaction against the ambiguities and formalism of pre-World War I society. Its radical art and avant-garde mentality sought to end the alienation of painting from society.
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[edit] Life
Münter was born in Berlin, and demonstrated an interest in art at an early age. She received private drawing lessons and attended the local Women Artists' School; as a woman, Münter was unable to enroll in the German art academies. Frustrated by a lack of respect due to her gender, Münter traveled to gain experience and find her artistic voice; her two-year visit to the United States from 1898–1900 ultimately solidified her desire to become an artist. For Münter art brought direction and order, rescuing her from aimlessness and giving her satisfaction and self-confidence; her travels had a great impact on her work. Münter left Berlin to attend the progressive Phalanx School in Munich, where she studied sculpture, printmaking and painting. In 1902, she began an intimate personal relationship with school director Wassily Kandinsky; they were later engaged to be married. By 1907, Münter qualified as a working artist with 800 other female painters and sculptors of the female sex:[1]
At first I experienced great difficulty with my brushwork- I mean with what the French call la touche de pinceau. So Kandinsky taught me how to achieve the effects that I wanted with a palette knife... My main difficulty was I could not paint fast enough. My pictures are all moments of life- I mean instantaneous visual experiences, generally noted very rapidly and spontaneously. When I begin to paint, it's like leaping suddenly into deep waters, and I never know beforehand whether I will be able to swim. Well, it was Kandinsky who taught me the technique of swimming. I mean that he has taught me to work fast enough, and with enough self- assurance, to be able to achieve this kind of rapid and spontaneous recording of moments of life.—Gabriele Münter, Reinhold Heller, Gabriele Münter: The Years of Expressionism 1903-1920. New York: Presteverlag, 1997.
[edit] Work
In 1911 Münter, Kandinsky and Franz Marc founded the avant-garde expressionist group known as Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). Within the group, artistic approaches and aims varied amongst artists; however, they shared a common desire to express spiritual truths through art. They championed modern art, the connection between visual art and music, the spiritual and symbolic associations of color and a spontaneous, intuitive approach to painting in its move toward abstraction.
[edit] Later years
During World War I the couple left Germany to take refuge in Switzerland, but since Kandinsky was Russian he was forced to return to Moscow in 1914. He divorced his estranged wife (his cousin, Anja Chimiakin), remarried in Russia and never saw Münter again. In the fall of 1917, Münter moved to Copenhagen. She returned to Germany following the war, but was relatively inactive in the arts until 1928 and her relationship with Johannes Eichner. In 1931, she moved back to her house in Murnau with Eichner. During World War II, she hid Kandinsky's works (and those of other members of the Blue Rider) from the Nazis. In 1956, she received the Culture Prize from the City of Munich. In 1960 Münter's work was exhibited for the first time in the US, and in 1961 it was shown at the Mannheim Kunsthalle. Münter lived the rest of her life in Murnau, traveling back and forth to Munich. She died at home in Murnau am Staffelsee on 19 May 1962.
[edit] Style
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Münter was part of a small subgroup of artists active in transforming late Impressionist, Neo-Impressionist and Jugendstil painting into the more radical, non-naturalistic art now identified as Expressionism. Early on, Münter developed a great interest in landscapes. Münter's landscape paintings employ a radical Jugendstil (or Art Nouveau) simplicity and suggestive symbolism with softly-muted colors, collapsed pictorial space and flattened forms.[2] She enjoyed exploring the world of children; using colorful prints of children and toys, Münter shows precision and simplicity of form in her rejection of symbolic content.
By 1908, her work began to change. Heavily influenced by Matisse and Fauvism, Gauguin and van Gogh, Münter's work became more representative[2] and she took refuge in the small Bavarian market town of Murnau. Murnau was a village untouched by industrialization, progress, and technology; it was here, in Münter's landscape paintings, that she emphasized nature, imaginative landscapes and an opposition to German modernism.[2] Münter's landscapes are unusual in their use of blues, greens, yellows, and pinks, and color plays a large role in Münter's early works. Color is used to evoke feelings: picturesque, inviting, imaginative and rich in fantasy. In Münter's landscapes, she presents the village and countryside as manifestations of human life; there is a constant interaction and coexistence with nature.
In 1911, with the establishment of Der Blaue Reiter, Münter's work changed stylistically once again. There is a transition from copying nature more-or-less impressionistically to feeling its content, abstracting, and drawing out an extract. There grew an interest in painting the spirit of the modern civilization, its social and political turmoil and its gravitation towards materialism and alienation. Münter noted that pictures are all moments of life: instantaneous visual experiences, generally rapid and spontaneous; her paintings each have their own identity, their own shape, and their own function.[3]
For Münter, it is the use of color which expresses these ideas. The German Expressionists moved towards primitive art as a model of abstraction (or non-representational, non-academic, non-bourgeois art.[4] The German artist looked not for harmony of outward appearance, but for the mystery hidden behind the external form. He (or she) was interested in the soul of things, wanting to lay it bare.[2]
[edit] Bibliography
- Behr, Shulmith, Movements in Modern Art: Expressionism. Cambridge University Press, 1999.
[edit] References
- ^ Crockett, Dennis. German Post-Expressionism: The Art of the Great Disorder 1918-1924. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999.
- ^ a b c d Heller, Reinhold, Gabriele Münter: The years of Expressionism 1903-1920. New York: Presteverlag, 1997.
- ^ Bachrach, Susan. "A Comparison of the Early Landscapes of Münter and Kandinsky, 1902-1910." Woman's Art Journal 2 no. 1 (1981): 21-24.
- ^ Wye, Deborah, review of Desire in Berlin, by Ian Buruma. The New York Review of Books 55, no, 19 (2008): 1-4.
[edit] External links
- Works & Biography, Galerie Ludorff, Düsseldorf, Germany
- "German Expressionism" in the 2009 Encyclopaedia Britannica Online
- Gabriele Münter profile at the National Museum of Women in the Arts
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