Page 34 - Studio International - July August 1971

Three exhibitions at the Hayward

Frank Whitford on Böcklin and Hodler
William Tucker on Henri Laurens

Ferdinand Hodler
Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau above a
Sea of Mist 1908
Oil on canvas
67.5 x 91.5 cm.
Coll: Professor Arthur Stoll,
Arlesheim
2 Arnold Böcklin
Combat of the Centaurs 1873
Oil on canvas
105 x 195 cm.
Coll: Offentliche Kunstsammlung,
Basel

Hodler and Böcklin are a joke. Or that, at least, Even Klimt's work underwent a change which imaginings convincing. Böcklin was so popular
is what they have become at the hands of can be traced to Hodler's influence, and there that large celebrations were held in Germany
writers anxious to prove that all painting is no doubt that the young Schiele drew and Switzerland on his seventieth birthday.
produced by German-speaking artists in the heavily on his example. Exhibitions were staged in Berlin, Hamburg
nineteenth century is worth no more than a Even greater claims than this can be made on and Basle, and a glut of Böcklin monographs
mention. And the fact that Böcklin was one of Hodler's behalf. In 1923 Fritz Burger published suddenly appeared. Clearly Böcklin should be
Hitler's favourite painters hardly helps matters. his Cézanne und Hodler, a book which, in taken seriously if only for the light this and
Even most of the reviews of these, the first Germany at least, became very influential and similar stories throw upon the preferences of the
large-scale exhibitions of Hodler and Böcklin in which put forward the case, convincing then if German public of that time.
Britain, have been patronizing or calculatingly not now, that Hodler and Cézanne, in their - Böcklin's reputation began to decline not
cool. common concern for pictorial and natural long after his death in 1901, soon reached its
Perhaps the reviewers are right. Perhaps structure, were the only true fathers of modern nadir and has remained there ever since. In
Böcklin is no more than a Swiss Watts, and art. It is impossible to go as far as Burger, but 1905 Julius Meier-Graefe, the man most
Hodler a man born too early to understand Hodler's interest in formal organization, his responsible for introducing modern art to
where he should have been going, and too late belief that a painting is an autonomous object Germany, published a famous polemical essay
to be able to fulfil his promise as an allegorist. parallel to and not a reproduction of nature, and called Der Fall Böcklin, The Case of Böcklin,
Perhaps these painters today are simply worth his continuing search for the simple and direct in which he suggests that, for all their invention
the scant footnotes they are given in art make him unique among German, or for that and fantasy, Böcklin's paintings are ruined by a
historical texts and little more. matter Swiss artists at that time. lack of spiritual depth and too little concern for
Yet their art historical importance is Both Hodler and Böcklin became form. In short, they could not have been
considerable enough. Böcklin's work, prized enormously popular in their own lifetime. seriously meant, and cannot therefore be taken
during his lifetime but rejected almost Böcklin's reputation was considerable and even seriously. Surprisingly, Meier-Graefe preferred
immediately after his death, became a rich Jacob Burckhardt wrote about the poetic depth Hans von Marées to Böcklin, another German-
source of inspiration for the Surrealists, and he found in Böcklin's paintings, suggesting that speaking artist who spent most of his life in
for Dali and de Chirico in particular. To see they were objects for meditation, that they Rome, and a painter far less imaginative than
The Island of the Dead, to be struck by its provided the imagination with the powerful Böcklin.
evocation of total silence and arrested time, is to stimulus it needed for self-discovery. Böcklin It is easy to come out against Böcklin with
know why. Hodler made perhaps the greatest invented a mythology, depicted a world, which, Meier-Graefe. In spite of a group of truly
impression on the Vienna Secession of any with its unusual mixture of the Classical and memorable images (and unfortunately The
single foreign painter. He regularly exhibited Germanic, exercised a powerful hold over the Island of the Dead is the only one of them
there from 1900 onwards, and in 1904 was German imagination, and he developed a exhibited at the Hayward) it is impossible to
given the main room in the Secession building. technique which made even his most extreme take his curious mythology seriously and
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