Page 31 - Studio International - February 1972

else. From works of every period he stares out even for years. Damn it, what to do ? All that I simply could not paint. Then, suddenly,
ugly, questioning, exulting, wry, melancholic, beer and all that tea demanded an outlet ... everything succeeded and to such a degree
waiting for inspiration. The emotion is never `Ludwig, where can I ?"Big or little ?' that I watched myself painting as though
the same and the emotion is expressed, as in asked Meidner. 'Little, thank God,' I replied. I were a spectator. My arm moved of itself
caricature, by an exaggerated use of line, by `Good, good', said Meidner. 'Use the and I was very surprised. Then something
bold contrasts, and by special emphasis on eyes, bathtub'. The tub stood in a small cubicle. came over me: The Holy Ghost. The strangest
mouths and hands. It was never used, of course ... The candle thing was that I didn't believe in God... I
Meidner not only drew and painted himself. that I had brought with me revealed a filthy noticed that the feeling was what is usually
An habitual frequenter of the literary and tub which had obviously served for both described as ecstasy... I only painted my
intellectual cafés, friend of many writers and `big' and little'.17 inward state !'19
with an ability to capture a likeness economically, Such repulsive conditions were clearly less Expressionism, based as it was on a
he became the informal recorder of the artists the result of a studied Bohemianism than of an transcendental view of the world and on a belief
and writers of his time, the unofficial Hofmaler incurable itch to work, to capture the essence in non-material reality, was the style of a
at the court of Expressionism, and virtually of the vision before it faded. Indeed, Meidner generation which rediscovered religion. At
everyone sat for him at some time or another : worked with the determination of someone with the height of a materialistic epoch during which
Becher, Neisse, Lotz, Werfel, Wolfenstein, van a terminal disease, afraid that time would run the Bible lost out to life insurance and the
Hoddis. No other artist compiled such a out before things got done, and nothing was as Church to the dance-hall and bar, the younger
complete record of the prominent artists of that important to him as painting and drawing. His generation turned to spiritual things as though
time and when Menschheitsdämmerung appeared writing reveals that he hankered after paints and they themselves had just discovered them. It
it was mostly illustrated with portrait drawings brushes with an almost sexual lust: was not orthodoxy which benefited but a variety
by Meidner. `Yes, colours, colours without numbers ! I of exotic, newly-founded and often cranky
Meidner seems to have produced most of the will marry into an oil-paint factory. As religions which enjoyed an enormous, if brief,
early self-portraits in a kind of ecstasy, close to dowry, my wife will bring me a thousand vogue during the years before the First World
a fit in its intensity and, like a fit, punctuated by tubes each of umber, ochre, cobalt, white and War. Peripatetic priests, their hair grown long in
visions. Meidner habitually worked on a madder. My wife will be angular, frenetic emulation of the Hebrew prophets, toured the
painting until he dropped, forgetting to eat or and hot. She shall have arms a mile long to country preaching the benefits of nudism, all-
sleep until he had finished, and totally wrap me close to her. We shall fold ourselves rice diets and meditation. Theosophy,
uninterested in his surroundings. He produced into the narrow bed and dream of burnt Mazdaism, Spiritualism and Zoroastrianism
his greatest paintings in 1912 and 13 in an attic umber. I will bite your head off and play ball were at the height of their influence.
studio in the Friedenau district of Berlin which in my glaring, uninhibited nights !'18 It is significant that so many of the
was incredibly filthy, piled with the ashes and Reference has already frequently been made Expressionist writers and painters were
slag of years, and, especially in the hot Berlin to the fact that Meidner fervently believed in the attracted to one or more of these faiths, that
summers, was filled with an almost unbearable reality of his own visions. After years of having Kandinsky turned to Rudolf Steiner, that the

7 8

stench, the source of which was amusingly been an atheist it was such visions which Bauhaus had on its premises a vegetarian
revealed by George Grosz in his autobiography. persuaded Meidner once again to take up kitchen and that Meidner, in this instance at
Grosz, who visited Meidner to have his portrait religion. Much later he explained that he had least more conventional than the others, returned
painted, wanted to go to the lavatory on one become convinced that his visions came from to the Jewish faith and, like Schoenberg later,
occasion : the Holy Ghost: began to base works on Old Testament stories
What a calamity ! It was impossible to get `In December 1912 I experienced a thorough- and figures.
relief. The toilet bowl was full to the top and going religious feeling for the first time. But religion does not find expression in
practically overflowing. It looked as if it had Suddenly one evening while I was painting Meidner's work until the last years of the war
been stopped up for months, and perhaps I noticed that nothing I was doing came off. and only becomes a major theme after it,
57