Word: blaues
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...exhibition gives plenty of scope to the artists of the Brucke and Blaue Reiter groups (there is a particularly fine sequence of early Kandinskys); but it is strong on artists who belonged to neither, such as Wilhelm Lehmbruck, whose war-induced suicide in 1919 at the age of 38 truncated what might have been one of the great sculptural oeuvres of the 20th century. The best coup is to have reunited the two completed parts of Grosz's blistering anti-establishment triptych of 1926, Eclipse of the Sun and Pillars of Society. The latter, with its beer-hall vision...
Prepared by your ad hoc lectures at the Grossenvahn, you can begin to explore treasures such as the Kunstmuseum, with its Blaue Reiter collection. After several days immersed in the corners, splotches, and brushstrokes of Klee, Kandinsky,Jawlensky, Kirchner, Macke, and Dali, venture upstairs to explore the world of Munich's artists...
...pinned down to one movement. She shows little traditional influence in most of her work, and in others, a definite Symbolist tendency, like her Portrait of Kandinsky, 1906, a lineoleum print that portrays Kandinsky staring out penetratingly against a background of large patches of stained-glass color. Her later Blaue Reiter work shows the influence of artists Jawlensky and Macke, as well as Kandinsky. In Still Life with Sunflowers, a simple outline of a vase supports very simply painted flowers. Using a minimum of strokes, Munter has made the stems stick out at jagged angles like a spider's legs...
PERHAPS THE PRINCIPAL PROBLEM behind Munter's lack of recognition lies in her relationship with Kandinsky, a genuis of the Blaue Reiter group. At first his student, and then his companion for eight years (difficulty obtaining a Russian divorce from his first wife precluded their marriage), Munter's work was constantly, and unavoidably, compared to an artistic giant who towered above her in his achievement. Mochon, in her catalog accompanying the exhibition (worth the price), describes the role of the women in the Blaue Reiter circle as definitely secondary: in the discussion and planning sessions for an almanac to present...
This exhibition, as well as focusing attention on a worthy but obscure artist, also shows that the Blaue Reiter movement included more than just Klee and Kandinsky. As a woman who persisted in her original interpretation of her time, Munter increased the scope of an artistic movement which helped define modern art, and at the same time, managed to remain involved with her subject in a way that always defied classification...