MODERN PAINTING IN GERMANY The Germans are an intellectual, philosophical and musical people. But their artists (painters and sculptors) have been few. Curiously enough, they have always taken an interest in French art and long before French Impressionism had dawned on Eng land, the German collectors had been acquiring masterpieces of that school of painting. They have had two good first rate painters : Adolf Menzel and Max Liebermann. But they have always been extremely active in following French development and have attempted to originate movements of their own.
In 1900 the predominating influence on German painting was the newly founded "Berliner Sezession." It was organized by Max Liebermann and Paul Cassirer, the prominent art dealer. The main interests of their exhibitions from 1900 to 1908 were provided by the paintings of Manet, Monet, Degas, Renoir and Liebermann. Their influence caused the formation of the German Impressionists under Louis Corinth and Max Slevogt.
Coincidentally with the developments in Paris there arose in 1908 a movement which sought to abolish Impressionism, both French and German. The leaders of the new movement were Oscar Kokoschka of Vienna and Max Pechstein of Berlin. They were stimulated, if not directly influenced, by the paintings of Van Gogh, Gauguin and Matisse. Another influence came from Russia from such painters as Javlensky, who became known in Berlin at the time.
them called "Sturm" (Tempest), under the leadership of the writer Herwarth Walden, pushed matters to such extremes that the movement became grotesque.
About 1910, Picasso and the Cubists made their appearance in Germany. A new Sezession was formed in the Rhineland, known as "Sonderbund" (Special League). They exhibited Picasso and other Cubist painters. But Cubism had little success in Germany and few—the chief of whom is Lyonel Feininger—still practise it. The influence of Futurism was as short-lived in Germany as in France and England.
Expressionism survived but in modified forms; it took on an academic complexion with Weisgerber of Munich; a semi-cubist manner, with Franz Marc, also of Munich; Renoir's and Matisse's influence was noticeable on August Macke of Diisseldorf. All three painters were victims of the war.
The most active of the later followers of Expressionism were Kandinsky, a Russian naturalised in Germany, who practised a kind of abstract painting, consisting of lines and patches of beauti ful colour, Paul Klee, Heindrich Nauen and Campendonck.
After the war an attempt was made to introduce a new move ment, "Neue Sachlichkeit," corresponding with the French "Sur realism," which marked a return to naturalistic forms, not in an impressionistic but in a naïve-realistic manner. The movement 'received some impulse from the work of the douanier Henri Rousseau. This new realism attracted some gifted painters and is still in force to-day. Its chief representative is Otto Dix.