Page 72 - Studio Interantional - May 1967

another example of 'the tyranny of Greece over Flaubert's into his diary: 'Is not asceticism a
Germany', as a disguised reactionary, abusing the higher form of epicurianism ? Is not fasting a
Bauhaus's stylistic dogmas to justify an untimely refined gluttony?' The word Schlemmer uses here
clinging to Neo-Classical formulae ? for 'gluttony' is `Schlemmerei'. 'Schlemmer' means
Oskar Schlemmer But notice the date. In the middle of war, on both 'gourmand' and 'gourmet'. Did the accident
leave after volunteering and being wounded, he is of his inherited name push him towards compen-
considering his potential place in the world of art. sating austerity? Did he shave his head or was he
He is 27. Around him art is as much at logger- just totally bald?
heads as are the European nations. He takes stock But if he admired the stability, the peace, the dignity
of himself and of art with an impressive coolness : of Holbein he was also tempted by the wild beauty
I vaccinate between two styles, two worlds, two atti- of Grunwald. His teacher, HOlzel, had stressed
tudes. If I managed to analyse them aright I should the expressive powers of pictorial means. To
surely be able to free myself of doubt. compensate Schlemmer looked beyond him to
Norbert Lynton The basic traits of the first are: severity, hardness, self- Hans von Marées, just as he combated Expression-
containedness, restraint, reserve, depth. . . . Really the ism with an exceptional awareness of Cubism.
hallmarks of antiquity. Astonishingly early (September 1916) he recog-
The traits of the other are then the opposite of the nized in Klee a wise and essentially constructive
The square of the chest, antique, and what is its great opposite if not the Gothic. draughtsman: Thus draws a Buddha. . . . Here is, as
The circle of the belly, Or mysticism. At any rate that which is ultra-sensual, Blake said, greatness of idea because of precision of idea.
Cylinder of the neck, monstrous, dionysiac, intoxicated, rhapsodic, winged, Like every other creative German of his generation
Cylinders of the arms and of the lower limbs, fluid. . . . he looked back to the Romantics, but it is the cool
Spheres of the joints at elbow, knee, shoulder, knuckle, And since in my painting, as in my life, I tend too Goethean spirit that he emulates: I want to realize
Sphere of the head, of the eyes, readily to the Rococo, would it not be the best antidote the Romantic concept in the most clarified form.
Triangle of the nose, to impose on myself the strictest severity? ... It is in his drawings that Schlemmer achieves
The line that joins heart to brain, Let everything come together— the mystical, primitive, this most fully, for us at any rate. We have not
The line that joins sight to what is seen, most extreme, Greek, Gothic : all must serve expression. experienced his dances. Much of his sculpture is
The ornament that forms between body and environment Schlemmer, after all, belonged to the country and gone. His paintings, however impressive, look
and makes their relationship. the generation of Expressionism. Personally he lonely without them. Drawing—above all, line
From Schlemmer's diary, October 1915. inclined to classicism for the sake of its clarity and itself—contains the common element of all his
firmness as much as for its identification with an pursuits. By far the best means of understanding
There is something almost naive about Schlemmer's idealized human image, but he felt the pull of his him and evaluating him, short of handling the
struggle to give the kiss of life to an idealism that time and place towards an art of explosive gesture originals, is now provided by this complete
the sculptural landslide of the nineteenth century and anti-traditional violence. Two years earlier, presentation of all his known graphic work (about
had killed. Should we see him, mockingly, as just in March 1913, he had copied some words of 1,400 items, almost all illustrated: various sorts of

Above
Poster for the Neuer
Kunstsalon, Stuttgart, 1913
Lithograph
191x 10+ in.

Left
Waldbildentwurf D.K. 1941
Pen and ink
8 ¼ x 11 ⅜ in.