MMaxi Madeiraman

Hermann Max Pechstein, Selfbildnis mit Tod 1920-21

German Expressionism 1915-1925

The second generation.

Hermann Max Pechstein began his artistic career as an apprentice to a decorative painter from Zwickau. In 1903, he enrolled in the Dresden Academy. In 1906, he graduated with top honors and a scholarship to study in Italy. On his return, he visited Paris where he befriended Kees Van Dongen. In 1906, he joined Die Brucke. In 1910, he moved permanently to Berlin where he was elected President of the Neue Secession. He exhibited at the Berlin Secession in 1912 and was therefore expelled from Die Brucke having violated their policy of only exhibiting together. In 1914, he traveled to the Palau Islands in the South Seas. While attempting to return to Germany, he was interred in Japan, the United States and Holland. Upon his return, he was drafted into military service and sent to the Somme front but was released in early 1917 after suffering a nervous collapse.

Pechstein produced 850 prints composed of 390 lithographs, 290 woodcuts and 170 etchings. In the early years, Pechstein only printed in very small editions. His often irregular rolling technique resulted in printing differences. He liked to experiment with colored papers and different inks. A print from several blocks (one for each color) was too laborious for his impatient nature so he applied the different colors to the same block.

Etchings represent the smallest number of prints in his entire oeuvre. He especially liked to combine drypoint and aquatint techniques. As an exceptional draughtsman, he liked the immediacy of lithography.

Leda, 1919

Otto Dix

In his foreword to the 1919 exhibition catalogue devoted to the group's prints Grohmann introduced Dix this way " Otto Dix appeared at Easter with brutal force, and all sorts of expectations were aroused. At the moment he is laughing heartily at himself, at art, and at us.
Let us leave him to it; something will surely occur to him."

Five paintings of 1919 serve to define Dix's Expressionist period.
Their titles Leda, schwangeres Weib ( Pregnant Women), Mondweib ( Moon Women), Auferstehung des Fleisches ( Resurrection of the Flesh), and Prometheus, a self portrait. The first four convey erotic messages of enormous vehemence with " something cosmic about them. " They were reproduced in Menschen.
Grohmann said, " the ultimate distillation of his memories, not analyses,
the delirium of life, the dancing bewitchment of color. You can turn his paintings upside down; they still work. That is how pure a representation of emotion his art is.
" Zehder takes up the description: " He swings the brush like an ax, and every stroke is a yell of color. The world to him is Chaos in the throes of giving birth."



vehemence
noun
the recruiters were talk to speak with unwavering vehemence passion, force, forcefulness, ardor, fervor, violence, urgency, strength, vigor, intensity, keenness, feeling, enthusiasm, zeal.



throes
plural noun
the throes of childbirth agony, pain, pangs, spasms, torment, suffering, torture; literary travail.
PHRASES
in the throes of we're in the throes of hurricane preparations in the middle of, in the process of, in the midst of, busy with, occupied with, taken up with/by, involved in, dealing with; struggling with, wrestling with, grappling with.



bewitch |biˈwi ch |
verb [ trans. ] (often be bewitched)
cast a spell on and gain control over (someone) by magic : his relatives were firmly convinced that he was bewitched.
• enchant and delight (someone) : they both were bewitched by the country and its culture | [as adj. ] ( bewitching) she was certainly a bewitching woman.
DERIVATIVES
bewitchingly |bəˈwɪtʃɪŋli| |biˈwɪtʃɪŋli| adverb
bewitchment noun
ORIGIN Middle English : from be- [thoroughly] + witch







MMaxi08

One of the most potent graphic cycles is the series of wood cut illustrations
by the Dresden Secession artist Constantin von Mitschke-Collande
for the Walter Georg Hartmann's allegorical book
Der Begeisterte Weg ( The Inspired Way; ) Haartmann
tells of a young soldier who experiences the beginnings of the Revolution,
the funeral of Liebknecht, and the outbreak of street violence, during which he was killed.
His spirit does not die; it wanders through revolutionary Germany, observing.
Mitschke-Collande focuses on the religious salvation promissed in hartmann's text.
He combines images from the Crucifixion and the Revelation of St. John
( for instance, the horsemen of the Apocalypse ) to intertwine Expressionists
religious imagery and a message about revolution.
The illustrations are a symbol of the political and spiritual awakening
of the second-generation Expressionists.
They reflect the crossroads that many artists felt they had reached.
Mitschke-Collande's style also reflects that eclecticism of the second generation.

MMaxi08

Constantin von Mitschke-Collande

Born 1884 Collande

Died 1956 Nuremberg

Education

Thechnische Hochschule, Munich, 1905-07
( architetural Studies )

Akademie, Dresden, 1907-10, 1912-13
Studied with Fernande Lèger and Maurice Denis, Paris

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