Page 28 - Studio International - February 1972

The work of enthusiasm for Expressionism has always been city-life : the brothels, the casualty wards, the
Expressionist poetry as was the darker side of
greater than elsewhere, there have been no
Ludwig Meidner exhibitions of his work and few collectors morgues and doss-houses. Here, in a poem by
anxious to acquire it. Paul Zech, for example, we find a typical piece
Frank Whitford The reason Meidner has been given such of imagery:
short shrift has nothing to do with the quality The windows stand close together
of his drawing or painting. Although his most Like the holes of a sieve and houses
`It may often seem that the stylistic term creative period was remarkably brief he must be Hug themselves so tightly that the streets
"Expressionism" is inadequate and inaccurate. rated among the best draughtsmen of his Look grey and swollen like a strangler's victims.5
On the one hand it describes nothing more than generation and his visionary paintings are But the city was more the subject of
an approach discernible in the art of all periods; unique, equalled perhaps only by those of Expressionist poetry than painting, and only
on the other it is too narrow and cannot be Kokoschka, an artist with whom Meidner has became a major concern of painters after the
applied to the work of, for example, Marc, much in common. It is difficult to explain why First World War. The only pre-war paintings of
Lehmbruck, Kokoschka or Klee. As a collective Meidner has failed to gain the recognition he so cities to reflect something of the attitude to the
term for the moderns it is therefore useless. One obviously merits. Perhaps it has to do with the subject which we find in the poetry are those by
of the leading contemporary artists must be fact that Meidner was an independent, belonged Meidner and Kirchner. Kirchner's street scenes
described as an Expressionist however, if only to none of the groups in whose terms the history are of course much better known, but for all
for the sake of the phonetic vitality of the word : of Expressionism has come down to us, and their obvious qualities they can only be related
Ludwig Meidner. Everything he does is associated more with writers than painters? with difficulty to the concerns and imagery of
expression, eruption, explosion. Here the Like Rohlfs and Morgner, two similarly the poems, whereas Meidner's pulsating and
volcanic epoch has spewed out... the lava of underestimated talents, Meidner made his own nocturnal cities come very close to the idea of a
history with irresistible force from its hottest way. It is probably, and ironically, for this threatening but exciting cage which often seems
crater.'1
reason that Meidner became the most typical to vibrate with the passions of the people trapped
This fulsome, early but accurate estimate of Expressionist of all. In his work we can isolate in it.
Ludwig Meidner appeared in 1920, and he the most striking characteristics of the style The city was Meidner's most important
remains the most typical Expressionist painter. more certainly than in that of any other painter. subject during his Berlin years. Asked in 1913 to
He also played a central role in the literary and outline a programme for the future of painting
artistic movement, a fact indicated by the CITYSCAPE he wrote an ecstatic, florid but impressive song
number of references to him in the catalogue of One of the great discoveries of the of praise to the city and demanded that artists
the great Expressionist exhibition held in Expressionists was the city. The Impressionists, paint their 'true home' and not the flower beds
Marbach in 1960.2 And yet all the studies of it is true, were the first to take subjects from the and rural scenes of the Impressionists. 'A street
Expressionism pay scant attention to him and city and city life but they treated them as though does not consist of tonal values' he declared 'but
he is still little known in his native Germany.3 they were landscapes. The Expressionists loved is a bombardment of rows of windows, rushing
Even in America, where the appreciation of and the city for its own sake and at the same time balls of light between roads and alleys of all
Nocturnal Street in Berlin 1913 loathed themselves for loving it. In taking sorts and of thousands of vibrating spots, groups
Brush and pen over partial pencil outline subjects like the concrete apartment blocks of of people and threatening, formless masses of
18* x 211 in. Berlin, the bars and railway stations, they colour.' 6 Such emphasis on energy, on violence
2 Grand Café Schoenberg 1913
Brush and reed pen over pencil, ink splatters evolved a new Romanticism which found magic even, clearly owes a great deal to the Futurists
14 x 20 in. in anonymity, asphalt and the urban sprawl. and indeed Meidner's enthusiasm for the city,
3 Figure in nocturnal street 1913 Broad streets with racing traffic, tall buildings, explained partly by the impact made on him,
Brush and reed pen over chalk and ink splatters gasometers, airships trailing advertising slogans a small-town provincial from Silesia, by Berlin,
16 x 19 3/4 in.
and dense crowds forming and reforming an was fired by the Italian Futurists who became the
4 Street with pedestrians 1913 endless variety of patterns were touched always rage of the German capital after showing there at
Brush, reed pen, ink splatters
23* x in in. with melancholy, as much the subject of Herwarth Walden's Sturm gallery in 1911 and 12.
2

54