<A>
Marees (unsteadiness): *
In 1864 he went to Italy where he met Conrad Fiedler, a German art historian & collector. In his last years he lived in Rome & was dependent financially on Fiedler. Ambitious but without self-confidence, later in life he ceased exhibiting his work. He would die disappointed & practically unknown. Fiedler supported Marees & while he took admirable care for the artist’s estate, he never believed in him. He stated that Marees’ work suffered from an unresolved conflict within the artist, his desire to produce free compositions (spontaneous not studied) against a striving for pictorial illusion (realistic). Each work would begin brilliantly, but was later spoiled by continuously over paint. They were conceived well, executed badly. Fiedler saw his work as unfinished, exaggerated, strained & arbitrary. He considered the artist to be deluded, with a split personality: Marees convinced others of his skill, and in this way managed to convince himself; he emerges as a tragic figure, a pathological case study.
and see Chapter VII pages 244, 252
<B>
Bocklin: *
Isle of the Dead, oil, Bocklin produced 5 versions of this work (1880-86); he never gave any explanation, saying only that it was 'a dream picture' or a 'picture for dreaming about'. An early version of the painting was commissioned by a Madame Berna, who wanted a painting with a dreamlike atmosphere. The title “Isle of the Dead” was invented by his art dealer, Gurlitt. During his last two decades, his work became increasingly subjective, using fabulous creatures or dark allegorical themes, revealing the morbid symbolism that anticipated the so-called Freudian imagery of much 20th-century art.
<C>
Kleist (Shakespeare & Stendhal): *
His most famous works include:
The Schroffenstein Family, published anonymously 1803, first production 1804; Kleist used as a literary model Romeo and Juliet & remained faithful to Shakespeare’s tragedy; written in Switzerland where Kleist took up farming- a project he quickly abandoned! Originally titled The Family Thierrez & set in France, he then changed the setting to Spain (under the title The Ghonorez Family) and then Switzerland.
Amphitryon, written 1803, published 1807, first premiered 1899; a tragicomedy in 3 acts; initially a German translation of Molière's play, Kleist became carried away although it still bears the subtitle "A comedy after Molière".
Katie of Heilbronn or The Trial by Fire (1807–1808) it was originally rejected. Goethe, director of the theatre at Weimar in 1807, refused at first to present it, calling it "a jumble of sense and nonsense .
Penthesilea (1808), tragedy about the mythological Amazon queen, Penthesilea, described as an exploration of sexual frenzy; Goethe rejected it as "unplayable".
The Broken Jug more successful than the above 3, a comedy, conceived in 1801, completed 1806 & first staged 1808 by Goethe in Weimar.
<D>
Menzel (anticipated Manet):*
LEFT-Menzel- At the Beer Garden, 1883
RIGHT-Manet- The Cafe Concert, 1878. Scene set in the Cabaret de Reichshoffen on the Boulevard Rochechouart, where women on the fringes of society freely intermingled with well-heeled gentlemen.
<E>
Leibl (as a Realist):
Three Women in Church, 1878–82,
Its intensely realistic style recalls Hans Holbein in its clarity of definition.
<F>
Menzel (as Prussian Rococo): *
"The Flute Concert of Sanssouci", 1850-52, a large (4.5‘ height x 6.5‘ length) oil on canvas; depicts Frederick the Great playing the flute in his music room at Sanssouci. As was his want, Menzel was incredibly meticulous in providing detail. Rather than paint anonymous models he populated the painting with known historical figures of the Frederick’s court: Frederick the Great is playing flute middle ground, far right: Johann Joachim Quantz, the king's flute teacher; to his left with violin & wearing dark clothing: Franz Benda; leftmost in the foreground: Gustav Adolf von Gotter; behind him: Jakob Friedrich von Bielfeld; behind him, looking at the ceiling: Pierre Louis Maupertuis; in the background, sitting on a pink sofa: Wilhelmine of Bayreuth; on her right: Amalie of Prussia with a maid of honor; behind them, Carl Heinrich Graun; the elderly lady behind the music stand: Sophie Caroline; behind her: Egmont of Chasot; at the harpsichord: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.
<G>
Marees (as Rubens): *
Marees painted a number of female nude groups
LEFT-The Hesperides, 1880s; one of 4 monumental triptychs he painted in the 1880s (the others The Judgment of Paris, Three Saints on Horseback and The Wooing)
RIGHT-Peter Paul Rubens, The Judgement of Paris, oil on panel
<H>
Leibl (Frau Gedon- as a Rembrandt's portraiture): *
oil on canvas, 1869; Mina, the young pregnant wife of the Munich sculptor and architect Lorenz Gedon , was the model for this portrait. Her girlish face has an expectant look on it. With delicate brightness, her hands are spread over the dark dress. The whole personality is embedded in the intimate shadows. A young, but mature artist has combined the painterly and the psychological, producing a satisfactory end result. At the First International art exhibition in Munich (1869) the picture was only moderately successful but was rated as the highlight of the event by progressive artists, especially Courbet. At the end of 1869 Leibl went to Paris, & exhibited "Frau Gedon" in the 1870 Salon. It was received enthusiastically by French critics, and Leibl received a “first” gold medal, which had been denied him at Munich.
<J>
Géricault (affinity to Baroque): *
The Charging Chasseur, exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1812, his first major work; revealed the influence of the style of Rubens (a giant of the Baroque age) and an interest in the depiction of contemporary subject matter.
<K>
Daumier (affinity to Baroque)
The Uprising, after 1848, oil on canvas; inspired by the Bloody June Days of 1848 in Paris in which Louis-Phillipe was overthrown and as such it is a dramatic, historical work. It does not use a journalistic point of view but an emotional one, with Daumier’s signature style of smudgy and mundane, yet honest and resilient citizens. The artist compressed the crowd by introducing the vertical wall to the right and the dark shadows on the left , massing the figures and thereby heightening the explosive quality of the scene and transforming it into a symbol of pent up human indignation.
