New Objectivity

by Sergiusz Michalski

In the early 1920s, the emotionalism of German Expressionism was replaced by a cooler perspective. The artists of the New Objectivity looked at everyday life outside the house, in the street and the gutter, developing a new style. This book examines their art.

Genres: Art, Art History, Nonfiction

220 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1995

Reviews

[Mir · Rating 5 out of 5]

An insightful and scholarly examination of the Neue Sachlichkeit art of Weimar Germany, accompanied by a large array of very high quality reproductions. The "New Objectivity" was not a uniform or highly organized artistic undertaking, although many of the artists in different loose groupings new one another. Michalski does a good job breaking down the various themes and locales (Neue Sachlichkeit differed substantially from one city to another and overall there was not a great deal of connection between communities) without over-simplifying too much. Occasional personal biases such as his love for Dix and his dislike of the middle class and low-brow are easy enough to spot.

The weakest section was the brief aside on photography, which is addressed only as something that had a tangential interrelation with painting. For this topic I recommend the extensive analysis included in the earlier volume Neue Sachlichkeit And German Realism Of The Twenties put out by the Hayward Gallery. I recommend it over this one for anyone who is unfamiliar with the topic and period and merely wants to quickly familiarize himself with the subject. The text there is very accessible and main points are highlighted for easy skimming. The art selection is is also good, although the quality of the reproductions (as one should expect from the 1970s) is not as high.

[Yoda · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Excellent Review

This book does a very good job at covering its topic, from providing some historical perspective to covering the individual artists. The first chapter provides the historical perspective- providing an explanation of what was happening at the time and how it influenced the art movement (i.e., dread and despair of the post war period stemming from hyper-inflation, the unchecked nihilism resulting from this, the psychological depression of the post war period, etc.). The weakness of the chapter is that it does not even touch upon the direct societal bitterness and anger that carried over from the war into this school of art, something that Hitler used to ride to power on.

Nearly the entirety of the book after this chapter is then dedicated to the artists composing this school, organized along the lines of the cities that they practiced in (i.e., Munich's Schrimpf, Kanoldt, Carra, Cologne's Brockmann, Seiwert, etc.). There is also a chapter on those artists that did not practice in only one city (i.e., Beckmann, Hofer, etc.). Not only are the differences in artistic style between the different cities' schools covered (i.e., the "Lego• and geometric block styles that composed the paintings of the Cologne artists versus that of other cities) but so are the subtle differences between the artists in each city. Considering how many artists there were (literally in the hundreds) this is quite a feat. Of course, it also leads to the fact that most of the artists covered in the book only being touched upon but considering that this book is only about 200 pages in length (excluding biographies, appendices, etc.) this is to be expected.

The book also does an excellent job, despite its short length, of showing the many, many contradictions in artist styles. From Grosz's Dadaism to the orderly compositions of the Cologne school (based on geometric sub-parts to photorealist styles) the reader gets a very good picture of these contradictions. In addition, the book captures the contradictions of the beliefs of many of the artists, from Marxists, to individualists, to the volk-based and far-right. The blurb on the back of this book, by Otto Dix, is "How opposites appear side by side! Here the solemn -and right beside it the comical. To me they seemed absolutely to below together•. The book does an excellent job at capturing this absolutely vital and critical element in the school of art it covers. This, by far, is its most important attribute.

Lastly, in terms of positives, the book has top-notch illustrations. They are not quite museum quality but then again this is not a book in that price range. For its price the illustrations cannot be beat.

The book does have one weakness however, that is technique is not covered. Some of the better Taschen books, for example, those on Watteau and Vermeer cover their use of thick quick brush strokes and the use of the camera obscura but this particular edition lacks that.

All and all an excellent introduction to this school of art.