International studio (44.1911)

PEalther Klemms

IKood- Engravings

historian—what Whistler would have called “an
art critic ” and then have crossed himself—was
mapped out for him. But he soon worked more
assiduously at the Academy and the Viennese
School of Applied Arts than at the University,
which he abandoned entirely at the expiration of
six semesters. Prof, von Kenner, Koloman Moser,
and A. Roller—the principal decorator at the
Viennese Opera, and the man who has quite recently
added new fame to his name by his mise en scene of
Richard Strauss’s “ Rosenkavalier ”—gave Klemm
the benefit of their advice.
At that time Emil Orlik had just returned from
his fourteen months’ sojourn in Japan, and started
the art of woodcut in Germany on a new basis.
The work interested Klemm intensely, but he never
received any instructions from Orlik or any one
else. It was natural, however, that at first his own
productions should savour of Orlik’s style to a
certain degree. And after having freed himself
from this influence he made one more detour, before
becoming quite himself. This consisted of a
thorough study of original Japanese woodcuts and
a serious attempt at imitating some of Hiroshige’s
prints. The object of this pursuit was to attain the
same starting-ground, so
to speak, to compass the
same basis upon which
this art is built in the Far
East.
“ My studies seemed to
teach me,” writes Mr.
Klemm, and the facts
bear out his observations,
“ that the Japanese never
work with their subject in
hand directly before their
eyes. The idealised veri¬
similitude obtaining in
Japanese art is so far re¬
moved from what we may
call a slavish or photo¬
graphic manner of copying
nature, that it can be
accounted for only by sup¬
posing it to be based on
memory and this again on
acute observation. They
evidently observe nature,
one might almost say,
stealthily, and thus receive
impressions of motion,
forms and colours which
are lasting and well

understood, whereas the man who immediately
reduces what he sees to a sketch or even a careful
drawing is perplexed and led astray by the endless
trivialities and inessential detail that pertain to each
subject as nature presents it. In our memory, only
the vital elements keep alive, and when we train
ourselves to stock our mind with careful observa-
tions, depending for our final work altogether
on the material that memory offers us, we attain
the typical and truly characteristic features of
nature.”
Animals engage Mr. Klemm’s attention more
particularly, and he tells me he lies for hours and
days in the fields, hidden among the bushes,
observing birds, hares, &c., through a good field-
glass. Then he returns home and jots down
“ notes ” in great number, as well as his memory
will permit. It is from these notes that he finally
makes up the picture. This method is, of course,
not exclusively his own, nor even a rare one—yet it
must not be forgotten that with us in Germany, at
least, you may chance to be in company with
a dozen full-fledged artists, and not one of them
would dare to draw even a simple composition
without the help of models. In any case, the


/‘TURKEYS.” FROM THE WOOD-ENGRAVING IN COLOURS BY WALTHER KLEMM

53