The symbolist key: Jan Verkade in Germany.
Item
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Title
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The symbolist key: Jan Verkade in Germany.
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Identifier
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AAI9917655
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identifier
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9917655
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Creator
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Grecco, Marguerita J.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Rose Carol Washton-Long
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Date
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1999
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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
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Abstract
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In the autumn of 1906, the former Nabi and then Benedictine monk, Jan (Pater Willibrord) Verkade traveled to the German art capital of Munich to embark upon an extended period of study intended to revitalize his approach to art. He was to spend eighteen months in Munich. While there, he carried the credo of Symbolism and its corresponding Synthetist painting style to a new generation of painters. In so doing, Verkade served as a catalyst, spurring artists like Kandinsky, Jawlensky and Munter to pursue their quest to develop abstract styles of painting.;Verkade had spent the previous twelve years immersed in the stylistic direction of the founder of the Beuronerkunstschule, Pater Desiderius Lenz, and his mathematically-based "canon of sacred proportions." Feeling the sterility of the method and the coldness of the works produced according to canonic formulae, Verkade was intent upon returning to nature as a source of inspiration for his art. To do so, he looked to his earlier Symbolist roots, formulated during his association with his fellow Nabis and with Gauguin.;He also sought to rekindle the sort of direct involvement with contemporary developments in art, which he had thrived on as a young Nabi in Paris and Pont-Aven. His long-standing relationships with Maurice Denis and Paul Serusier, with whom he had never lost contact, enabled Verkade to establish himself within the experimental artistic community of Schwabing. Denis, especially, helped Verkade gain entry to Munich's art society. Through Denis, Verkade met such men as Henry van de Velde and Julius Meier-Graefe.;Verkade's personality and easy sociability brought him into contact with several artists working in Munich, who were experimenting with new approaches to painting. What they shared with Verkade was a desire to restore to art its primary role as a communicator of a spiritual realm.;Verkade's own quest to revive the Symbolist/Synthetist character of his work, coupled with his interaction with the Munich avant-garde, resulted in an exchange among them that ennobled Symbolist ideology. Verkade's work, along with that of his Nabis colleagues, which he displayed proudly in his lodgings, and his constant talk of Gauguin and of Nabi sensibility, caused artists like Jawlensky, Werefkin, Kubin and others to explore again and experiment with Symbolist ideas and Synthetist technique. Verkade's direct involvement with Serusier, who visited him in Munich, and with Denis, whose Symbolist writing had been widely published, served to elevate Verkade's ideas in the eyes of his Munich colleagues.;As they began to formulate plans to establish the Neue Kunstlervereinigung , Munchen, these painters carried Verkade's message to Kandinsky and Munter, whose works from the period of 1908--1911, display the distinct character of a Symbolist/Synthetist approach.;Although the Munich sojourn left Verkade at a serious crossroads in his own life and career---his new experiment with Symbolism made it impossible to return to Lenz's "canon" in earnest---his significance in the history of art is imbedded in his influence on those experimental painters: Kandinsky, Jawlensky, Munter, etc., whose own work would change the nature of modernism.
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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.
