DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48744#0002
INTRODUCTION
THE Exhibition in New York of a collection of modern
German art is an experiment. Many are entirely unac-
quainted with the German phase of the modern art movement;
many are hostile to it. It is indeed very difficult to understand
the artistic spirit of a country that has been cut off from the
world for years and has developed an art more indigenous than
almost ever before in its history. Courage to hold this exhibi-
tion has been given by the well-known lack of prejudice and the
broad understanding of American friends of art. Americans
were among the first to appreciate the masterpieces of the
French Impressionists and their followers, such as Van Gogh,
Gauguin and Cezanne, at a time when people in Europe were
generally skeptical. In the beginning of the movement, at
the time of the Franco-Prussian war, France was politically
prostrate, but her art was at its highest point. To-day, Ger-
many is in a situation similar to that of France around 1870,
and the friends of modern art in Germany believe that these
creations may be a pride and a consolation to her.
One does not expect that an art born out of the soul of the
people, and expressing its deepest suffering, shall ingratiate it-
self through charm and surface agreeability. Such an art is in
direct contrast with a superficial ideal of taste. That which
is born out of revolutions, cannot be measured by the petty
standards of an art based on luxury. Since the 18th century
there has existed a “society” art that even to-day dominates
wide circles. This conception of art has poisoned the taste of
the public and has only an appearance of life. But there is
also an art that is life itself, that rises out of the depths like
a cry, and in this cry carries the deepest expression of true
humanity. So it has always been with the great art of the
past, and so it will be again with modern art.
Let us not be misled if our first impression is unexpected and
not always pleasing. Is not actual experience—and what else
is art—always unexpected and startling? Let us but recall the
first appearances of the great artists of the past and the crit-
icisms of contemporaries, or the events of more modern times,
which we or our fathers have witnessed—the early days of the
great 19th century musicians, or of realism and Impressionism
2
THE Exhibition in New York of a collection of modern
German art is an experiment. Many are entirely unac-
quainted with the German phase of the modern art movement;
many are hostile to it. It is indeed very difficult to understand
the artistic spirit of a country that has been cut off from the
world for years and has developed an art more indigenous than
almost ever before in its history. Courage to hold this exhibi-
tion has been given by the well-known lack of prejudice and the
broad understanding of American friends of art. Americans
were among the first to appreciate the masterpieces of the
French Impressionists and their followers, such as Van Gogh,
Gauguin and Cezanne, at a time when people in Europe were
generally skeptical. In the beginning of the movement, at
the time of the Franco-Prussian war, France was politically
prostrate, but her art was at its highest point. To-day, Ger-
many is in a situation similar to that of France around 1870,
and the friends of modern art in Germany believe that these
creations may be a pride and a consolation to her.
One does not expect that an art born out of the soul of the
people, and expressing its deepest suffering, shall ingratiate it-
self through charm and surface agreeability. Such an art is in
direct contrast with a superficial ideal of taste. That which
is born out of revolutions, cannot be measured by the petty
standards of an art based on luxury. Since the 18th century
there has existed a “society” art that even to-day dominates
wide circles. This conception of art has poisoned the taste of
the public and has only an appearance of life. But there is
also an art that is life itself, that rises out of the depths like
a cry, and in this cry carries the deepest expression of true
humanity. So it has always been with the great art of the
past, and so it will be again with modern art.
Let us not be misled if our first impression is unexpected and
not always pleasing. Is not actual experience—and what else
is art—always unexpected and startling? Let us but recall the
first appearances of the great artists of the past and the crit-
icisms of contemporaries, or the events of more modern times,
which we or our fathers have witnessed—the early days of the
great 19th century musicians, or of realism and Impressionism
2
