Die Brücke
One hundred years ago in Dresden, four budding artists formed a group called The Bridge (die Brücke). Together they hoped to attract like-minded people, both artists and collectors. The Bucerius Kunst Forum is commemorating their successes one hundred years later with Die Brücke und die Moderne 1904-1914. The name derives from Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, “Man is a bridge to the future.” The founders, Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and their friends organized exhibits of their work, and Hamburg welcomed them with enthusiasm. Other members like Cuno Amiet, Otto Mueller, Emil Nolde and Max Pechstein (100 in all and many from Hamburg) contributed. They published a magazine Ver Sacrum (Holy Spring).
Director Heinz Spielmann limited the exhibit to include choice examples. It is klein aber fein (small but exclusive) as the Germans say and closes on January 23. Definitely rent a tape recording in English to guide you around the exhibit, because understanding the relationships of the artists to each other and their world is what it is all about. The Bucerius is rightly proud of its success with 150,000 visitors this year, a lot considering that it is closed when setting up new exhibits. The museum restaurant is quite cozy in the winter. The owner has the reputation of cooking a menu to go with the exhibit, and I’m wondering what he will do with these German expressionists. Bucerius Kunst Forum Return to: Home
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by
Becky T
The
exhibit features 45 paintings, 100 drawings, and some wood carvings. It begins logically with
paintings of early members and supporters, as well as illustrations of Hamburg at that time.
This was a two-way “bridge”, and paintings are juxtaposed alongside foreign influences:
for example, Japanese wood cuts, African carvings, and other artists such as Klimt and van
Gogh. Possibly influenced by Rodin, they made sketches of living models and timed themselves
to just 15 minutes per sketch. They experimented with the idea of man and nature, painting
people outside under a tree. Artists such as Kees von Dongen, Maurice de Vlaminck, Pablo Picasso
and Edvard Munch were working similarly in other countries.