Rétrospective Max Liebermann au Gemeentemuseum de La Haye
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| Max Liebermann - Papageienmann (L'homme aux perroquets), 1902 Museum Folkwang, Essen |
Un peintre allemand qui quitte Weimar pour Paris, voilà qui n'est pas courant. En 1873, Max Lierbermann tenta cette expérience pour étudier les Impressionnistes. Le succès ne fut pas au rendez-vous - sa nationalité y fut pour beaucoup. En 1878, il quitta la France pour l'Italie et les Pays-Bas (où il reviendra souvent pendant l'été), avant de s'installer à Berlin où il fit l'essentiel de sa carrière.
D'où le prétexte de cette rétrospective présentée jusqu'au 24 juin 2018 au Musée Communal de La Haye - Max Libermann, impressions d'été.
‘Don’t forget to come to Scheveningen as soon as possible,’ Jozef Israels wrote to Max Liebermann (1847-1935) in March 1904. Between 1870 and 1914 the German artist spent a number of summers in the Netherlands with his friend Israels. Together with Israels' son Isaac he painted the fashionable lifestyle emerging in that period: outdoor cafés teeming with patrons enjoying the sun, riders and bathers on the beach. By that time Liebermann was a celebrated artist both in his native Germany and abroad, famous for his paintings with ‘sunspots’. In 1920 he was even appointed director of the academy in Berlin, a position he would have to relinquish towards the end of his life, when Hitler came to power. Yet he continued to be a favourite with the public in Germany, even after his death. But his work is less well known in the Netherlands. Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, with partner the Liebermann-Villa am Wannsee museum, is therefore presenting a major retrospective featuring highlights like Free Hour at the Amsterdam Orphanage (1881-1882) and The Parrot Man (1902), painted at Amsterdam’s Artis zoo.
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| Max Liebermann, Free period in the Amsterdam orphanage (Moment de repos à l'orphelinat d'Amsterdam), 1881-1882 oil on canvas, 78.5 x 107.5, Städel Museum. |
Enemy in France
In 1873 the young
German painter Max Liebermann moved from Weimar to Paris. At that point
in time, the French capital was a magnet for many European artists, but
for a German this was not an obvious step so soon after the
Franco-Prussian War. Three years before, the Germans had been victorious
in the conflict, and many French still felt great bitterness towards
the ‘enemy’. Liebermann’s move is therefore evidence of his great
courage. He followed his heart to the cradle of realism, a movement he
had first encountered in Weimar. Without ever having turned a sod, in
Paris and in Barbizon the son of a wealthy textile manufacturer threw
himself into painting simple country labourers. He saw his great hero
Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) only once. Nevertheless, Liebermann
produced a series of works whose subjects were taken directly from the
work of the French artists, including Woman Gathering Potatoes (1874) and Potato Harvest in Barbizon (1875).
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| Max Liebermann, Tennisspieler am Meer (1.Version) (Joueurs de tennis à la mer (1ère version), 1901 Oil on canvas, 69,5 x 100 cm, Museum der Westküste |
Friendship in the Netherlands
Max Liebermann’s
first visit to the Netherlands was a short one, but still the country
managed to steal his heart. He found his own Barbizon in places like
Delden, Dongen, Zweeloo and Scheveningen, places where time had stood
still. Lagging far behind industrialised nations like France, Britain
and Germany, the Netherlands made painters and writers long for times
past, before the steam train had replaced the horse-drawn barge. The
Netherlands inspired Liebermann’s best work, which won him the
recognition he craved at the Paris Salon. His Free Hour at the Amsterdam Orphanage (1881-1882) was praised from Berlin to Paris.
Dutch painter Jozef
Israels was also impressed by Liebermann’s work. At an exhibition, he
tapped Liebermann – twenty years his junior – on the shoulder. This
marked the beginning of a very close friendship. They spent several
summers together in Scheveningen. There was no other place in the
Netherlands that was so symbolic of the advent of leisure. At first,
Liebermann mainly painted the fishing village, but soon his realistic
depictions of the simple life made way for sunny pictures of the newly
fashionable lifestyle, featuring tennis players, bathers and riders on
the beach. In the same period, zoos became a popular attraction all over
Europe, and Artis zoo in Amsterdam became a favourite subject of
Liebermann’s.
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| Max Liebermann, Ateliers des Künstlers (L'atelier de l'artiste), 1902 oil on canvas, 68,5 x 82 cm, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen |
Famous at home
Although the Germans
initially found Liebermann’s work too French, around 1900 his fame began
to grow at home. In 1898 he co-founded the Berlin Secession, an
artists’ association in the mould of the Munich Secession and the Vienna
Secession. Liebermann was its first chairman. His success was at its
height around the turn of the century; at that time his paintings were
fetching more even than those of Claude Monet. Shortly afterwards his
work underwent a further development. While, in his highly praised
painting of the Amsterdam orphan girls, one can almost count
the bricks in the wall, from the 1890s onwards, under the influence of
French Impressionism, his brushwork became much looser, as can be seen
in Birches on the Banks of Wannsee, towards the East. This new approach eventually made him the figurehead of German Impressionism.
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| Max Liebermann, "De Oude Vink" Restaurant in Leiden, 1905 Oil on canvas, 88 x 71 cm, Kunsthaus Zürich |
Sunny paintings in times of war
The outbreak of the
First World War put an end to internationally-oriented artists’ freedom
of movement. Liebermann could no longer travel to the Netherlands.
However, the conflict was welcomed from Berlin to London. Many saw it as
a chance to finally break with the past. Liebermann also allowed
himself to be swept along by misplaced feelings of heroism, but soon
became disillusioned when he became aware of the horrors of the war. In
1920 the new government appointed him director of the academy in Berlin.
Liebermann’s international outlook, which his fellow countrymen had
mistrusted before, was now a great advantage. Thanks to his large
international network he managed to liberalise the academy, one of the
last bulwarks of cultural conservatism. Despite the political and social
tensions, Liebermann remained a sunny Impressionist in his work. He
continued to paint to an advanced age, though he did withdraw more and
more to his villa by Wannsee lake. He did however see the torchlit
nighttime procession to celebrate Hitler’s seizing of power in January
1933 from his house on Pariser Platz in Berlin. As a Jewish artist, his
position as honorary chair of the academy became untenable in the final
years of his life.
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| Max Liebermann (1847 - 1935), Reiter am Strand (Cavalier sur la plage),
1908 Oil on canvas, 71 x 89 cm, Museumlandschaft Hessen Kassel |
Max Liebermann died at
his home on Pariser Platz on 8 February 1935. For a man who had played
such a prominent role in Berlin, his funeral was a very modest affair.
At that moment it was not possible to fully appreciate a Jewish artist
who had painted Dutch scenes in the style of the French Impressionists.
After the war, his work was reappraised in Germany, and he became a
great favourite with the public. His masterpieces are therefore rarely
loaned by German collections. Many German institutions have however made
an exception for our exhibition Max Liebermann – Impressions of Summer. Liebermann’s Free Hour at the Amsterdam Orphanage
will for the first time be leaving Frankfurt since it gained a
permanent home there at the city’s Städel Museum. Gemeentemuseum Den
Haag is very grateful to all who have provided works on loan for this
exhibition.
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| Max Liebermann (1847 - 1935), Altmännerhaus in Amsterdam (Maison de retraite à Amsterdam), 1880 Oil on canvas, 87,5 x 61,4 cm, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart |
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| Max Liebermann, Birches on the Wannsee Shore toward the East (Bouleaux sur le littoral du Wannsee), 1924 oil on canvas, 50 x 60 cm, Museum Wiesbaden |
(Source des illustrations et du texte en anglais : Service de Presse du Gemeentemuseum Den Hague)
Rétrospective Max Liebermann, Impressions of summer.
Gemmentemuseum Den Hague, jusqu'au 24 juin 2018
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| Max Liebermann, 1931 |
En 1920, alors que Max Lierbermann est Président de l'Académie prussienne des arts de Berlin, il dira dans un discours officiel :
Quelqu'un qui a fait l'expérience, dans sa jeunesse, du rejet de l'impressionnisme, se gardera bien de condamner un mouvement (l'expressionnisme) qu'il ne comprend pas ou ne comprend plus, notamment en tant que directeur de l'Académie, qui, aussi conservatrice soit-elle, se figerait totalement si elle désapprouvait systématiquement la jeunesse.
Ça n'a pas grand rapport avec la rétrospective de La Haye, mais je fais un peu ce que je veux ici !
C'est aussi à Max Liebermann qu'on doit cette phrase prononcée début 1933, après l'accession au pouvoir de Hitler :
Ick kann jar nich soville fressen, wie ick kotzen möchte (je ne pourrai jamais assez bouffer pour dégueuler autant que je le souhaite)
Max Liebermann était un grand Monsieur...
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