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george grosz- ein wintermärchen

by domenico ermirio

march 2016

people in riviera

In March 1920 the new-born Weimar Republic was threatened by a putsch, later known as "Kapp Putsch". For some days there were riot, strikes, demonstrations and armed clashes between the opposing political parties. In Dresden's Zwinger Gallery a painting by Rubens was stricken by a bullet that missed its mark. Oskar Kokoschka, at that time professor at Dresden Academy (we talked about him in our last December newsletter), made a public statement, and urged the Dresden workers, who have defended the new Republic against the right wing of Kapp, to take their shooting to the heath outside the city, or better still, settle their disputes with a fight between the leaders of the two factions. This would avoid the recurrence of such an incident, because "the German people would in the future judge that a painting, thus saved, would give them more happiness… than they could possibly derive to the views held today by the politicking German's". The reaction to these sentences was very loud and some artists too criticized his words. George Grosz's answer was the article Der Kunstlump ("The wretched artist") published in the magazine Der Gegner ("The Enemy"): there he wrote they're happy that the bullets penetrated galleries and palaces striking a Rubens rather than the dwellings of the poor and the workers.

It's easy to notice this ideological difference comparing Kokoschka's life and works with Grosz's ones - though they both belonged to what Nazi called "Degenerate Art". The first decided to follow his mission trying to find the good things that remained in a world so close to ruin (traveling through Europe, Middle East and North Africa); the second denounced the decay of society and used it as his favorite subject. The most successful Grosz's works represent the vices, the sicknesses and the injustices of his time. He was mostly considered more as a caricaturist than a painter (that was for the presence of stereotypes, the use of symbols and the general sense of ridicule). He was what we call today a socially-engaged artist: he used his skill as a tool of social complaint.
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As a convinced Communist he joined the German Communist Party in 1918. His works picked on the great powers of the state (politics, military, capitalists,  priests), portrayed the misery of lower classes and the revelry and gluttony of the enriched. He used the style of paper caricature, of course, but he referred also to the metaphysical painting of Giorgio De Chirico and to the apocalyptic images of Hieronymus Bosch. George Groß was born in Berlin in 1893 and later he changed his name in Grosz, (that seemed less German). Since young he showed a great skill for drawing, but already in the Academy years, as he became conscious of his social and political believes, his ability seemed losing importance. It is better to use an harsh, ungraceful, almost babyish sign if it shows clearly the subject and the message of the work. Sometimes his extraordinary talent came out in some sketches representing animals, people, though they are considered by critics nothing more than minor works. And it is true: that is not George Grosz. His art has a meaning only with a social function.

Have you ever think to stop with your nacre decorations? …
Your brushes and pens, which should be your weapons, are nothing more than empty straws.

Usually his works are overspread with a cynical and disenchanted derision, sometimes with a severe sentence and in a certain way with foresight (as in 1928's The agitator, which referred to Hitler and his soaring power, while many people considered him at that time only a side character of the political scene), but always with hate and resentment. He payed his irreverent images with more than a complaint and a legal trial. The last ended in 1930 and he was condemned for blasphemy because of the drawing Christ in a gas mask - Keep your mouth shut and do your duty. In 1931 he was invited to teach by the Art Students League of New York. He did not need to be asked twice: immediately he took the chance to escape from the European madness. In 1933 he was stably settled in United States with his family: the wife Eva Peters and the two sons Peter Michael and Martin Oliver. They remained there almost until 1958. Though this transfer he did not abandon his communist ideals, even if they seemed to lose the first strength, and his works represented now only the echoes of the great European catastrophe. Years before Grosz was invited in Russia too: it was a travel together with his friend and writer Martin Andersen Nexø because of the print of a book about Russia. The welcome was a peculiar one: they were immediately arrested as spies. Than they were released and they met many political authorities and the great Lenin too. Even he was happy for this travel, he wasn't enough convinced to find later his home in Russia rather than in the States
In 1921 Grosz and Eva were guests of Felix Weil during an Italian travel. Felix was the son of the rich merchant Hermann Weil and he founded in 1924 the Social Research Institute of Frankfurt. For his marxist ideals he was interested on the socially-engaged artists in Germany. He never knew Grosz, if in name only, (especially because of the frequent attacks from the conformist common opinion). He decided then to organize for him a pleasant holiday and what could be better than the Italian Riviera, and the splendid Brown Castle of Portofino? At that time Felix Weil (later called by Grosz "Lix") was only 23!
 
We had had an excellent dinner in Genoa, and then an old-fashioned horse carriage drove us in the Italian dusk through the almost theatrical scenery. A huge iron gate was opened, a liveried servant took our luggage. Then our host (Felix Weil) greeted us. He was a tall young man, younger than we had thought. We liked him at first sight; … We would swim and row together, have fun throwing each other in the water and fighting with soaked baskets from Chanti bottles. I can still see him standing on his little balcony high above us, as we were swimming toward a buoy in the transparent, blue Mediterranean, and shouting warnings to us about supposed sharks - and those meals served in grand style in the old refectory of Castello Brown. Open windows and doors - moonshine, warm, unreal dream nights.

Felix will help the painter in some following rocky situations of his career and in 1926 Grosz portrayed him. If for Kokoschka the period in Rapallo was part of the great inspiration tour he made for discover the beauty of the world, for Grosz Portofino represented only an holiday, far from the hate and the problems of German society. George couldn't find an inspiration in the landscape, the sea, the sun, even if he loved all of them. His painter soul could be lightened only by the social fight and the political complaint against the evils of the general system. After the long American period he came back to Berlin - maybe he was curious and he would like to represent another Winter Tale of the new divided Germany. But he hadn't enough time. After less than two months he died in such a ridiculous way: he was drunk and he fell down the entrance stairs.
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