New Objectivity
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The New Objectivity (in German, Neue Sachlichkeit), was an art movement that arose in Germany in the early 1920s as an outgrowth of, and in opposition to, expressionism. The movement essentially ended in 1933 with the fall of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazis to power. The term is applied to works of pictorial art, literature, music, and architecture.
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[edit] Pictorial art
Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, who was the director of the Kunsthalle in Mannheim, coined the term in 1923 in a letter he sent to colleagues describing an exhibition he was planning. In his subsequent article, "Introduction to 'New Objectivity': German Painting since Expressionism," Hartlaub explained,
| “ | what we are displaying here is distinguished by the — in itself purely external — characteristics of the objectivity with which the artists express themselves. | ” |
He identified two groups: the Verists, who "tear the objective form of the world of contemporary facts and represent current experience in its tempo and fevered temperature;" and the Magical Realists (whom he called classicists in the article), who "search more for the object of timeless ability to embody the external laws of existence in the artistic sphere.”
Although the distinction between Verists and Magic Realists is in fact rather fluid, the Verists can be thought of as the more revolutionary wing of the New Objectivity, epitomized by Otto Dix and George Grosz. Their vehement form of realism distorted appearances to emphasize the ugly, as ugliness was the reality these artists wished to expose. This art was raw, provocative, and harshly satirical. Other important Verists include Christian Schad, Rudolf Schlichter, Georg Scholz (in his early work), and Karl Hubbuch. Max Beckmann, who never considered himself part of any movement, is a giant among the Verists even though he is sometimes called an expressionist.
Compared to the Verists, the Magic Realists more clearly exemplify the post-World War I "return to order" that arose in the arts throughout Europe, and that found expression in neoclassicism. The Magic Realists, including Anton Räderscheidt, Georg Schrimpf, Alexander Kanoldt, and Carl Grossberg were a diverse group that encompassed the nearly photographic realism of Schad and the gentle neo-primitivism of Schrimpf. The paintings of Räderscheidt show echos of the metaphysical art of the Italians Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà, and the influence of the Swiss painter Félix Vallotton is apparent in the sour realism of several of the Magic Realists and Verists as well.
Albert Renger-Patzsch and August Sander are leading representatives of the "New Photography" movement, which brought a sharply focused, documentary quality to the photographic art where previously the self-consciously poetic had held sway.
[edit] Definition
Critic Franz Roh (1925) listed the differences between expressionism and the New Objectivity, which he called post-expressionism:
| Expressionism | Post-Expressionism |
|---|---|
| ecstatic objects | plain objects |
| many religious themes | few religious themes |
| the stifled object | the explanatory object |
| rhythmic | representative |
| arousing | engrossing |
| dynamic | static |
| loud | quiet |
| summary | sustained |
| obvious | obvious and enigmatic... |
| monumental | miniature |
| warm | cool to cold |
| thick coloration | thin layer of color |
| roughened | smooth, dislodged |
| like uncut stone | like polished metal |
| work process preserved | work process effaced |
| leaving traces | pure objectification |
| expressive deformation of objects | harmonic cleansing of objects |
| rich in diagonals | rectangular in frame |
| often acute-angled | parallel |
| working against the edges of image | fixed within edges of image |
| primitive | civilized |
- (Kaes et al, 1994)
[edit] Music and architecture
New Objectivity in music, as in the visual arts, rejected the sentimentality of late Romanticism and the emotional agitation of expressionism. Composer Paul Hindemith may be considered both a New Objectivist and an expressionist, depending on the composition, throughout the 1920s. His music typically harkens back to baroque models and makes use of traditional forms and stable polyphonic structures, together with modern dissonance and jazz-inflected rhythms. Ernst Toch and Kurt Weill also composed New Objectivist music during the 1920s.
New Objectivity in architecture, as in painting and literature, describes German work of the transitional years of the early 1920s in the Weimar culture, as a direct reaction to the stylistic excesses of Expressionist architecture and the change in the national mood. Architects such as Bruno Taut, Erich Mendelsohn and Hans Poelzig turned to New Objectivity's straightforward, functionally-minded, matter-of-fact approach to construction, which became known in Germany as Neues Bauen ("New Building"). The Neues Bauen movement, flourishing in the brief period between the adoption of the Dawes plan and the rise of the Nazis, encompassed public exhibitions like the Weissenhof Estate, the massive urban planning and public housing projects of Taut and Ernst May, and the influential experiments at the Bauhaus.
[edit] Legacy
The New Objectivity movement is usually considered to have ended at the fall of the Weimar Republic when the National Socialists under Adolf Hitler seized power in March 1933. The Nazi authorities condemned much of the work of the New Objectivity as degenerate art, so that works were seized and destroyed and many artists were forbidden to exhibit. A few, including Karl Hubbuch, Adolf Uzarski, and Otto Nagel, were among the artists entirely forbidden to paint. While some of the major figures of the movement went into exile, they did not carry on painting in the same manner. George Grosz emigrated to America and adopted a romantic style, and Max Beckmann's work by the time he left Germany in 1937 was, by Franz Roh's definitions, expressionism.
The influence of New Objectivity outside of Germany can be seen in the work of artists like Balthus, Salvador Dalí in such early works as his Portrait of Luis Buñuel of 1924, Auguste Herbin, Maruja Mallo, Cagnaccio di San Pietro, Grant Wood, Adamson-Eric, and Juhan Muks.
[edit] References
- Albright, Daniel (2004). Modernism and Music: An Anthology of Sources. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-01267-0.
- Bonet, Juan Manuel, et al. (1997). Realismo Magico: Franz Roh y la Pintura Europea 1917-1936. Valencia: IVAM Institut Valencià d'Art Modern. ISBN 84-482-1527-3 (Spanish and English)
- Crockett, Dennis (1999). "German Post-Expressionism: The Art of the Great Disorder 1918-1924". Penn State Press.
- Kaes et al., eds (1994). The Weimar Republic Sourcebook, p.493. Berkeley: University of California Press. Cited in Albright (2004).
- Michalski, Sergiusz (1994). New Objectivity. Cologne: Benedikt Taschen. ISBN 3-8228-9650-0
- Schmied, Wieland (1978). Neue Sachlichkeit and German Realism of the Twenties. London: Arts Council of Great Britain. ISBN 0-7287-0184-7
- Willett, John (1978). Art and Politics in the Weimar Period: The New Sobriety 1917-1933. New York: Da Capo Press, 1996. ISBN 0306807246.
