Page 89 - Studio International - March April 1975

reads like a bid for scholarly preeminence tired economists. Some historians have Wieland Schmied's study of 'Die Neue
on the subject of Matisse's art and that also discovered frightening parallels Sachlichkeit', although good, should be
must have been its impact when it was between German culture then and the amplified and extended to cover Realist
first published in 1951. As a sourcebook present state of the Dow Jones Index: the tendencies in general, a most interesting
of facts and documents pertinent to tendency towards pornography, the and important phenomenon. Books on
Matisse's art, it retains its value. Over erosion of standards generally, the flight Grosz (rather than by him) were also rare
five-hundred reproductions provide a into empty aestheticism, the self- until the appearance of Beth Irwin
handy halftone overview of Matisse's art. conscious attempt to make art socially Lewis's 'George Grosz: Art and
The choice of colour-plates (which may relevant and even politically influential. Politics in the Weimar Republic' in 1971,
not have been Barr's) is not very good. All these are seen as symptoms of a model of the kind of historical
Some of the most familiar Matisses of all, Weimar and of today. scholarship which revealingly relates
like The Piano Lesson and The Woman The trouble is that but few of these artist to social background. Now Hans
with the Hat, use up the colour-plates gloomy brigade members have done Hess (previously best-known for his
rather wastefully. There are many other their homework, have bothered to look monograph on Lyonel Feininger) has
equally important and masterful works, deeper than films like the `Dr Mabuse' written the first critical biography of
such as the Moscow Coffee Pot, Carafe, series, further than paintings like those by Grosz and it is a welcome addition to the
and Fruit Dish, or the 1914 Studio with Dix and Grosz, or wider than books like literature of the period, although it
Goldfishbowl that might have conveyed a Kracauer's 'From Caligari to Hitler', doesn't tell us very much that wasn't
less conventional view of Matisse's each of which tends easily to support a known already and doesn't illustrate
achievement to readers who have seen very superficial thesis. For the character enough of the work itself, especially of the
few of the works in person. Barr makes of Weimar Germany is much more best period before Grosz became
reference in the text to numerous colour- complex than most historians would have involved with realist ideas.
plates that do not appear in the present us believe. It does however make clear that Grosz
edition, suggesting that the original That is why I like Walter Laqueur's was very much an artist of one time and
publication must have been much more `Weimar'; it manages to portray the one situation, essentially a cartoonist
lavish than the current one. political, economic and cultural whose work declined when his grasp on
There is nothing controversial in Barr's developments in all their complexity current affairs slackened and his
views of Matisse, in part, I suspect, without forcing them into any political philosophy was undermined.
because he wanted to treat the artist as if preconceived didactic mould. It is also The drawings and paintings of the New
his place in art history were established written without pretension, a sure sign York period are sad productions. Mr Hess
beyond all possible controversy, as that the author knows what he's talking does reproduce some of the late collages,
indeed it is. There is something about. Professor Laqueur reminds us however (discovered in New York not
intimidating about the Matisse who lurks that this period of economic collapse and long ago and first printed in England in
behind Barr's text. And it is almost as if political turbulence saw the emergence of the 'Sunday Times' colour magazine)
Barr were responding to intimidation in the Bauhaus, of a style of theatrical which are, it must be admitted, a
failing to raise the question of whether production and of a film industry, each different thing altogether and show that
Matisse's insulation from the shattering of which led the world and exerted a far- Grosz, however fitfully, was able to
events of his time was really the price of reaching influence. He also reminds us of recapture some of the bite and sheer
his achievement, or whether that the vitality of scientific thought and invention of his earlier work. George
achievement is ultimately compromised discovery at this time. German Grosz will prove useful but I nevertheless
by the artist's detachment from the universities were without parallel, feel, perhaps unfairly, that Mr Hess has
horrors of modern life. Barr's treatment of especially for their research into physics not entirely done justice to his subject.
Matisse's life is almost as formal as his and chemistry, but (and this contradiction Grosz was a complicated, larger-than-life
discussion of the paintings. If this were is typical of Weimar culture in general) character whose attitude to art and to
truly a new book, one would have to the structure of the universities himself is endlessly fascinating and whose
fault it for failing to consider the meaning themselves remained medieval: drawings, in which an eroticism, an eye
of Matisse's lack of politics. • hierarchic, bureaucratic and reactionary. for telling detail and a delight in the
Kenneth Baker The received notion that the Right Wing grotesque come effortlessly together, are
was responsible for all political ills is also brilliantly expressive. Mr Hess might
put to the test and found wanting. Had it consequently have allowed his ink to run
Weimar Art not been for the bickerings within the purple from time to time, might have
departed from the conventions of
Social Democratic Party and the
planned assault on the Constitution by straight narrative to deliver a well-turned
Weimar the extreme Left the Nazis could not anecdote or a thumb-nail sketch of the
A Cultural History 1918-33 by Walter have come to power. In short, Weimar artist in patent-shoes, well-brushed
Laqueur. 3o8 pp, 58 black and white Germany was both the best of times and bowler and trench-coat with the belt
illustrations. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, the worst of times and its culture must undone, drinking Korn in the
£5.95. not be seen exclusively as the expression `Romanisches Cafe', not the flaneur but a
George Grosz of political and economic problems. passionately involved observer of what
passed before his eyes.
After all, Nazi Germany, unquestionably
By Hans Hess. 272 pp, 227 illustrations. the leading economy in Europe, was Weimar Germany did indeed produce
Studio Vista, £9.50. simultaneously anti-intellectual and some curious and contradictory cultural
Moholy-Nagy culturally backward in the extreme. phenomena, registering but no longer
But what of the art ? Weimar means following developments elsewhere and
Marginal Notes, by Lucia Moholy. 95 pp. above all the Bauhaus, the political raising issues which are still urgent and
Scherpe Verlag, Krefeld, no price.
photomontages of John Heartfield, the problematic. While artists like Grosz,
The Hitler File `Neue Sachlichkeit', especially of Grosz, Dix and Heartfield were attempting to
Dix and Beckmann, each of which is ways in which to make what they did
A Social History of Germany and The touched upon in Professor Laqueur's socially relevant and politically
Nazis 1918-45, by Frederic V. Grunfeld. excellent book. It is an unfashionable influential, the Bauhaus, first in Weimar
374 PP, numerous illustrations. view, but I believe that the German art then Dessau and finally Berlin, moved
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, £6.00.
of the Weimar period had more from a metaphysical, expressionist
My Life implications for the future and was attitude to art and its function towards
By Oskar Kokoschka, 240 pp, 20 black and essentially more vital than the art of any the rational, functional, technological
white illustrations. Thames and Hudson, other European country at that time. aesthetic with which we now associate it.
Some of the most important artists, Moholy-Nagy, who joined the staff at
£5.25.
notably Beckmann, are already adequately Weimar in 1923, did his utmost to oppose
Comparisons between Weimar covered in English. But there are some the transcendentalism which, thanks to
Germany and present-day capitalist awkward gaps. There is still no English Kandinsky, Klee and, above all, Itten,
society are not the exclusive reserve of monograph on Dix or Heartfield and dominated the school's thinking while
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