Autonomy and authority in German twentieth century art: The art and career of Willi Baumeister (1889-1955). (Volumes I and II).
Item
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Title
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Autonomy and authority in German twentieth century art: The art and career of Willi Baumeister (1889-1955). (Volumes I and II).
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Identifier
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AAI9119617
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identifier
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9119617
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Creator
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Chametzky, Peter Martin.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Rose-Carol Washton Long
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Date
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1991
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Art History | Biography
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Abstract
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Willi Baumeister's art and career are used to explore interconnections between modern art in Germany and throughout Europe, and the interaction of modern art and history in twentieth-century Germany. Baumeister's paintings, graphics, and reliefs are discussed and compared with the work of related artists, including Oskar Schlemmer, Otto Meyer-Amden, and Fernand Leger. The historical reception of Baumeister's art and his persona in Germany from 1910 to the present is also analyzed, especially the work of Baumeister's biographer, Will Grohmann.;Baumeister was an artist committed to the idea that art must be autonomous from the political world. Though this was his professed position, and though he believed that modern art's particular value depends on its existence as an autonomous area of human endeavor, Baumeister's work derives its historical significance from its extended engagement with twentieth-century history and art. From 1910 to 1955 Baumeister was thoroughly engaged in the theory and practice of modernist art; he worked in many styles and techniques, and published numerous articles, as well as a book of art theory. Baumeister's education under Adolf Holzel at the Stuttgart Academy is discussed, as are his early Post Impressionist paintings and his brief flirtation with Expressionism in 1913 and again, in a more political vein, in 1919. Baumeister's constructivistic "Wall Picture" reliefs of the early 1920s are considered, as are his more naturalistic "Sport Pictures" of later the same decade. A chapter deals with Baumeister's "Primitivism," beginning about 1930, and two chapters are devoted to Baumeister's situation as an artist who remained in Germany from 1933 to 1945, though declared "degenerate" by the Nazis. Analysis is offered of oppositional Dadaistic collages that he produced using reproductions of works by official Nazi artists. Finally, Baumeister's role in West Germany in the first ten years after the Second World War is discussed, when he and his art provided a visible link to the pre-Nazi culture of twentieth-century Germany and Europe.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
