DOI issue:
No. 129 (November, 1907)
DOI article:Studio-talk
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28253#0084
Studio-Talk
Writing-Bureau), is a fine example of a Viennese
interior of the early part of last century. Many
modern artists seek these motives now. One
sees them on the walls in Munich, in Cracow,
in fact everywhere, for the Biedermaier style is
now having its day.
But a sudden change came over the artist him-
self and his manner of painting. He was unsettled,
his roaming nature was dissatisfied and longed for
change. He was one only of a number of young
men who were experiencing the same feelings, and
together they felt themselves strong enough to
throw off the shackles which had bound them.
They seceded from the Genossenschaft, and formed
the group known as the Secession. There is no
need to go over the history of this movement
again—it has been already told in The Studio.
Interiors and sacred subjects were relegated to the
background. Bernatzik now sought quiet bits of
landscape with running or
still waters, limpid streams
with banks clothed in ver-
dure of exquisite and varied
greens, softly swayed by
gentle breezes and reflected
in the waters below. To
this new phase in his art
belongs the Marchensee
(Fairy Lake), where delicate
waterlilies float over the
glassy, cool, translucent
surface, from which the
mind’s eye seems to picture
a Naiad arising in her
turquoise-blue and emerald-
green draperies. The rich-
ness and beauty of the
painter’s poetic fancy is
inspiring.
But though Bernatzik
was chiefly attracted by
Nature’s calmer moods, he
occasionally essayed to in-
terpret her under a less
friendly guise. In the mo-
tive from Steinfeld we have
a bare landscape, strong in
tone, with cold grey clouds
overhead. And yet here,
too, the artist shows his
sense of beauty; over the
hardness of nature he has
68
thrown a veil. The gentle wind sets in motion the
sparse shrubs lining the stream like the loving tender
smile which lights up and changes a hard expression
on a rugged countenance to one of joy and delight.
The FIa7tie is one of those mystic, fairy-like, dreamy
expressions inspired by the artist’s poetic fancy.
Delicate in tone and atmosphere the flames rise
from the mother earth to gradually attenuate into
curling wreaths disappearing in the expanse above.
The female figures are painted with delicacy and
grace. This work proves the artist to have been a
man of intense feeling, far more so than one would
have surmised from his outward appearance.
At one of the Secession exhibitions, each artist
had a small room to himself where he arranged his
exhibits according to his own fancy. Bernatzik’s
contribution was the “Yellow Room.” This again
showed him in a new light. The landscapes sur-
prised everybody by the beauty of tone and the
Writing-Bureau), is a fine example of a Viennese
interior of the early part of last century. Many
modern artists seek these motives now. One
sees them on the walls in Munich, in Cracow,
in fact everywhere, for the Biedermaier style is
now having its day.
But a sudden change came over the artist him-
self and his manner of painting. He was unsettled,
his roaming nature was dissatisfied and longed for
change. He was one only of a number of young
men who were experiencing the same feelings, and
together they felt themselves strong enough to
throw off the shackles which had bound them.
They seceded from the Genossenschaft, and formed
the group known as the Secession. There is no
need to go over the history of this movement
again—it has been already told in The Studio.
Interiors and sacred subjects were relegated to the
background. Bernatzik now sought quiet bits of
landscape with running or
still waters, limpid streams
with banks clothed in ver-
dure of exquisite and varied
greens, softly swayed by
gentle breezes and reflected
in the waters below. To
this new phase in his art
belongs the Marchensee
(Fairy Lake), where delicate
waterlilies float over the
glassy, cool, translucent
surface, from which the
mind’s eye seems to picture
a Naiad arising in her
turquoise-blue and emerald-
green draperies. The rich-
ness and beauty of the
painter’s poetic fancy is
inspiring.
But though Bernatzik
was chiefly attracted by
Nature’s calmer moods, he
occasionally essayed to in-
terpret her under a less
friendly guise. In the mo-
tive from Steinfeld we have
a bare landscape, strong in
tone, with cold grey clouds
overhead. And yet here,
too, the artist shows his
sense of beauty; over the
hardness of nature he has
68
thrown a veil. The gentle wind sets in motion the
sparse shrubs lining the stream like the loving tender
smile which lights up and changes a hard expression
on a rugged countenance to one of joy and delight.
The FIa7tie is one of those mystic, fairy-like, dreamy
expressions inspired by the artist’s poetic fancy.
Delicate in tone and atmosphere the flames rise
from the mother earth to gradually attenuate into
curling wreaths disappearing in the expanse above.
The female figures are painted with delicacy and
grace. This work proves the artist to have been a
man of intense feeling, far more so than one would
have surmised from his outward appearance.
At one of the Secession exhibitions, each artist
had a small room to himself where he arranged his
exhibits according to his own fancy. Bernatzik’s
contribution was the “Yellow Room.” This again
showed him in a new light. The landscapes sur-
prised everybody by the beauty of tone and the