Review

Reviewed Work(s): Franz Anton Maulbertsch 1724-1796 by Klara Garas

Review by: Norbert Lynton
Source: The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 105, No. 721 (Apr., 1963), pp. 175-176
Published by: Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/873848
Accessed: 27-01-2020 09:33 UTC

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 THE LITERATURE OF ART

the publication,
style, readers unfamiliar with asthe one ofarchi-
the Stockholmnot only during the period in Copenhagen,
tect's very large euvreStudies
willin thefind
History aof Art,
sym- of Gunnar but also when in Dresden.
pathetic introductionBerefelt's
to the Philippindividual
Otto Runge. Zwischen Auf- The plates at the end of Berefelt's vol-
monuments here. Thebruch very lavish
und Opposition corpus
1777-1802. ume are an invaluable collection of illus-
of illustrations finally Mris unique
Berefelt in his
explains that theinterest in trations, sometimes reproducing extremely
Palladio literature for sheer size as well as obscure and unfamiliar works not other-
Runge 'ist urspriinglich aus friiheren Studien
for its new photographs. j.s. zur Kunst and Asthetik der Goethezeit hervorge-wise accessible. (One grumble here: Wh
gangen, wobei der schwer zu bemeisternde Prob- reproduce the nasty re-engraved version
lem-Komplex, der sich hinter den Hauptbegrifenof Flaxman's engravings published as lat
"Klassizismus" und "Romantik" verbirgt imas 1872, when the original late eighteenth-
Philipp Otto Runge. Zwischen Auf- Vordergrund stand.' His volume deals with century editions are not hard to find?)
bruch und Opposition 1777-1802. the artist's stay in Hamburg after 1793,Source material as well as contemporar
By Gunnar Berefelt. 249 pp. +174 ill. followed by the period in Copenhagenparallels are sometimes juxtaposed with
Uppsala (Almqvist & Wiksell), Sw. (1799-i8oi), and finally the first years inRunge's own work, often revealing start
kr.48. Dresden. The author presents an excellent, ling comparisons and adding a great dea
visually to the discussions in the text.
detailed analysis of these vitally important,
Philipp Otto Runge is one of the most formative years studying the complex As a result Runge's neoclassical phase i
important figures in the development of blend of interests ranging from Homer,really properly evaluated for the first time
German Romantic painting. He was Virgil, and Ovid (to whose writings theand the seeds of his later Romantic develop-
praised at the time by Goethe, the Schlegel young artist was introduced while in Ham-ment - sown before he arrived in Dresden
brothers and many other contemporaries,burg) to the mysticism and naivety of Tieck- become clear. In his youth romantic and
and his premature death in 181 o was muchand Wackenroder. It was in Munich that neoclassical tendencies are found side by
lamented. This further addition to the Runge began to draw and paint, having side: but in German art these were not
Runge literature fills a vital gap, andmet itsartists and others interested in art in antithetical principles but simultaneo
importance can be fully appreciated when his brother's circle. These influential friend- attempts to create a new basis for art
one considers previous studies on this ships, including that of the future publisher Berefelt has already pointed out in an
artist. Friedrich Perthes, are discussed in the article in the Journal of Aesthetics and A
Nearly forty years after his death second
his part of Berefelt's book and illus- Criticism in 1960). Later in Runge's wo
trated with many quotations not only from the antique gives way to an increased
brother Daniel collected together the letters
and other writings, and published themRunge's
as own letters but from other con- mysticism, a striving for a universal sym-
temporary sources as well. The author
Hinterlassene Schriften. These two volumes bolism, the formulation of a new vision of
have remained ever since indispensable draws
to a clear and thorough picture of landscape and an admiration for early
Runge's biographers and critics; indeed,artistic and literary life in Hamburg at the German painters (particularly Diirer). But
some volumes on the artist contain very very end of the eighteenth century. already, before 1802, Runge's concept of
Perthes much later - in a letter of 1840
little apart from extracts from the writings, the painter-poet had been growing, and
quoted by the author - was very aptly to had been foreshadowed, for example, in
and Forsthoff's incomplete edition (1938)
summarize Runge: 'Otto's Anschauungen that fascinating early Romantic novel,
did not supersede the original publication
of 1840-I. One of the most monumental vereinigen in sich festen christlichen Glauben, Heinse's Ardinghello und die gliickseligen
pub- Phantasie und tiefen Forschungsgeist.' Inseln. DAVID IRWIN
studies of Runge is Otto B6ttcher's feurige
But
lished in 1937, but it is not of much use as before the full flowering of Runge's
an art-historical analysis. Other general,
'fantasy' lies the period of the Copenhagen
but far from detailed, studies of Runge Academy, where he was taught by the
include those of Schmidt (1923, second neoclassicist Abildgaard and the portraitist Franz Anton Maulbertsch 1724-1796.
edition 1956) and Bohner (1937), andand thelandscape-painter Jens Juel. The in- By Klara Garas. vii+333 pp. (16 figs. +
much more valuable ones by Isermeyer fluence of Copenhagen on German paint- 16 colour pl.) +315 pl. (Translated from
and Degner (both 1940). Pauli produced ing has already been dealt with in detail by the Hungarian by Klara Garas and
in 1916 an excellent study of the drawings Charlotte Hintze in her Kopenhagen und die Tilda Alpari.) Vienna (Amalthea-Ver-
and scissor-cuts in the Kunsthalle at Ham- deutsche Malerei um i8oo (1937). But Bere- lag).
burg, and among other works on specialfelt now goes most usefully into more detail
aspects of Runge the most notable are two about one such German artist in Copen- Maulbertsch was the greatest painter of
analyses of his relationship with Tieck, by hagen, discussing his ideas and reproducing the splendid century of Austrian civiliza-
Krebs (1909) and Grundy (1930), and thea large number of the drawings. This was tion which began with the architecture of
correspondence with Goethe published asa period of eclecticism, but with a general Fischer von Erlach and culminated in the
Volume 51 of the Goethe-Gesellschaft (1940).neoclassical tendency. He drew from the music of Beethoven. Thus he was probably
Finally, the Art Bulletin of 1942 included anude and from the antique, copied illus- the greatest painter produced by that
penetrating analysis of the landscapes bytrations from Tischbein's recently pub- country up to the time of Kokoschka. Yet
Otto Georg von Simson. lished edition of Hamilton's collection of he could scarcely be less known in Britain
It is apparent from this brief summary vases, and was enthusiastic about Flax- (it is significant that the Murray Dictionary
of the Runge literature that what is really man's classical and Dante illustrations. The does not include him), and the fact is that
needed is a full, detailed, and up-to-dateversions of the Triumph of Love (slightlyeven in his own part of Europe he has not
analysis, which assesses Runge's impor- Rococo in feeling) and the Triumph of
until now been accorded the honour of a
tance in the context of both contemporary Apollo are discussed in a thorough art- full-scale monograph. Others - Professor
art and ideas. And in particular what is historical manner, showing roots in antiqueMartin Haberditzl particularly - have em-
seriously lacking is such a volume on sculpture, in paintings at Herculaneum barked on comprehensive studies of this
Runge's early work, that is before he pro- and in Raphael. Comparative examplessubject without achieving completion. Dr
duced the famous and uncompleted Tages-are also discussed, and illustrated, from theGaras has been able to base her work on
zeiten and also developed his colour theories,work of Abildgaard, and the lesser-known their efforts, and, in overcoming the diffi-
published in the last year of his life as Gerdt Hardorff and Giuseppe Anselmoculties inherent in surveying work spread
Farben-Kugel. A volume is very muchPellicia. Detailed discussions of this kind throughout Austria, Germany, Hungary
needed, in other words, on the neoclassical are precisely what is needed to assess more Bohemia, and Moravia, in palaces, monas
roots of Runge, before he soared to thefully Runge's work and relate it to that of teries and modest village churches as wel
visionary heights of romantic symbolism.his contemporaries. Revealing analyses of as collections all over the world, much of i
At last such a study has been produced, by this kind abound in the book under review,so far unnoticed by art historians, she has

'75

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 THE LITERATURE OF ART

produced an entirely professional

humanity book
and light to our age which he of
photographic source for the C6zanne sous-
which she may wellconsiders
be empty
proud of both.and
I believewhose
his bois with melting snow near Melun (see
value will endure. views of the present are too pessimistic but
p.I go). Nevertheless in the new edition he
his plea is eloquent, even if his repeated
It is a book of slightly dismaying solidity publishes for the first time another photo-
but this results neither from padding nor bracketing of Maulbertsch with Mozart graph used by C6zanne for his pictorial
from pedantry. The 17o-odd pages ofseems Dr generous to excess. inspiration (Victor Chocquet, pl.3I) which,
Garas's discursive account ofMaulbertsch's NORBERT LYNTON
like the landscape photograph, has long
life and work are marked by objectivity of been known to specialists through the
attitude and simplicity of style (the book courtesy of the painter's grandson Jean-
has been translated from the original Pierre C6zanne.
Hungarian by Dr Garas and Tilda Alpari). Glancing through the text, the sensitive
Cezanne. By Henri Perruchot. (Translated
In recording the major commissions under- eye may object to the unexpected tilt of the
from the French by Humphrey Hare.)
taken by this prolific painter, Dr Garas is C6zanne self-portrait drawings, or query
able to correct many misconceptions, in- ?2 xvi-+348 pp. +57 pl. the logic ofBooks),
(Perpetua reproducing a second time a
2S.
cluding the fundamentally erroneous idte fragmentary Apris-midi d Naples drawing
revue that takes Maulbertsch for a painterCUzanne. By Rene Huyghe. 85 pp. (36 datable to the early 1870's as a suitable
exclusively of religious subjects in a highly colour figs.) (Oldbourne Press), ios 6d. preface to the years 1882-5. But we must
mystical rococo style. She clarifies the all be grateful to the author for uniting in
character of his earliest works, pushes backFive years after its first appearance in one set of plates nearly all the known re-
the dating of his frescoes in the Piaristen-France Henri Perruchot's biography of presentations of Cezanne. Students of
kirche in Vienna (1752, not 1745; a parti- C6zanne is now made available to English C6zanne's chronology will question some
cularly important date since it marks the readers. Subtle changes have occurred in of the dates assigned to these photographs
the translation but a more noticeable differ-
beginning of his long series of religious and (for example Hermann Paul's painting of
secular fresco decorations), traces the sub-ence is in the illustrations. Instead of the C6zanne dated 1906 on pl.I51 was described
sequent history of Maulbertsch's work in unsatisfactory selection of paintings repro- in an article by Louis Vauxcelles dated
fresco, oil and the graphic media, includingduced in the French idition de luxe, the i8th March 1905 as being exhibited in
his posthumous influence and reputation, English version presents mainly photo- Paris that year).
and periodically summarizes his stylistic graphs of C6zanne, his family, and friends.Humphrey Hare has made an excellent
development which, in brief, took himTogether, text and plates give a convincing translation of Perruchot's animated French
from the dominating influence of Paulaccount of C6zanne the man, and we can text. The same cannot always be said for
Troger in Vienna, through that of the agree with Perruchot's claim that he has the translator of Rene Huyghe's Cizanne.
Venetians, to that of the Dutch and more 'Design and colour' is not what C6zanne
'tried to assemble in this book everything
particularly and interestingly Rembrandt. that is known about him today'. meant when he spoke to Emile Bernard on
The period through which Maulbertsch 'C6zanne was a secret man', begins the 'Le dessin et la couleur' (p.48). But as a brief
lived and worked is one of the most com- foreword, and it is disappointing to find
summary of the driving forces that moulded
the painter, Huyghe's essay is a welcome
plex of European cultural history. Rococothat his latest biographer has added little
sophistication transformed the Baroque, to what is already known to English companion to Perruchot's factual compila-
and Neo-Classicism, loaded with latent readers from the pioneer researches of tion. As in his 1936 book, Huyghe stresses
Romanticism, issued its challenge to Mack and Rewald. One welcome innova- the duality of Ceizanne's art, differentiating
Rococo in the name of reason. In Austria tion, however, is Perruchot's translation clearly
of between his will to order and his
absolution gave way to a generous, thoughnineteenth-century French francs into overabundant,
their irrepressible sensations or
short-lived, wave of enlightenment. Art present day equivalent. As prominent temperament.
foot-
separated itself more and more from notes, these figures remind us of a fact too Huyghe rightly emphasizes in his chapter
Crown, Court, and Church, and Dr Garas often overlooked, C6zanne's financial inde- on the 'Tumult of Youth' Cezanne's
shows that Maulbertsch belonged to a new pendence from 1886 onwards. For'violent the force of sensibility'. It is theref
class of professional artists, neither crafts- reader eager to explore the source material,unfortunate that the colour plates -
men nor courtiers, that worked increasingly Perruchot's extensive bibliography indi- scrappy portrait and a single compositi
for a middle-class clientele and sympa- cates the eye-witness accounts and subse- give so inadequate an idea of the paintin
thized with its artistic requirements. This quent critical commentaries. An index executed
is before the taming of this tum
text is followed by pages of notes, a three- also provided, but regrettably the entries about 1872. There is also little cohes
part wuvre catalogue (including nearly 400 under Paul Cezanne show little systematic between illustrations and text: those who
paintings), forty-odd pages of documenta- arrangement. The chronology which closes know their Venturi catalogues will follow
tion, much of it quoted in extenso, and the biography is a useful reminder of the themany references to paintings unillus-
an exhaustive bibliography of considerable increasing interest in C6zanne's achieve- trated, but possibly not so the general
general value, chronological tables, and ments after his death. reader for whom this inexpensive book is
indices ordered by names, places, subjects, Most of the sixty or so passages omitted surely intended. The thirty-four repro-
and media. or thinned out from the original French do ductions that chart Cizanne's pictorial
Only the production of the book invites not affect the development of the story. progress after 1872 do, however, in their
adverse comment: the colour plates are Yet given the turbulent nature of Cezanne's variety, emphasize one point made in the
ridiculously bad, and some of the black- temperament it seems unwise to have text: 'the rich and almost chaotic diversity
and-white illustrations are even worse. In toned down in the translation nearly all of his nature' (p.12).
the references to his erotic tendencies in
some instances local difficulties may account Minor criticisms are the dates given to
for this, but generally it seems an un-the i86o's. Inevitably, the omission of paintings reproduced or discussed on pages
necessary blemish and an important one in documents quoted by Perruchot in the 48, 49, 70, and 8o. Similar lapses occur
French text deprive the English version ofelsewhere: p.38, Cezanne's meeting with
view of the relative inaccessibility of many
of the originals. valuable contemporary comment (e.g., Van Gogh is wrongly dated to the 1870's,
Someone, author or publisher, had the p.232, Huysmans' account of C6zanne's and there is no proof that the Eternal
interesting idea of asking Oskar Kokoschka work c.1877). feminine was exhibited in 1877; p.68, the
to write a preface to this book. Kokoschka Seeing that the original inexact dating wine bottle has not disappeared from the
recalls the impression made on him, in of the Vieille au chapelet has been corrected Courtauld version of the Card Players;
in the English edition, it is surprising that
early youth, by the Piaristenkirche frescoes, Maurice Denis' Hommage d Cizanne is dated
another error in the earlier text remains.
and holds up Maulbertsch as a necessary 1900 (p.76 as 1902); Marion's geological
example of a painter concerned withPerruchot still seems unconvinced of the excursions with C6zanne took place in the

176

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