DOI Heft:
No. 26 (May, 1895)
DOI Artikel:Singer, Hans Wolfgang: Max Klinger
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17294#0055
Max Klinger
AX KLINGER. BY
HANS W. SINGER.
Morelli (Lermolieff), that able
authority and enthusiast on Italian
Art, exclaimed in a transport of joy over his
adopted countrymen, " We Italians are singing-
birds ; you Germans up there, are birds of prey ! "
The comparison seems harsh and unjust, yet
there is at bottom a grain of truth. The singing of
the South, Italian Art, is a happy, light and fluent
manifestation, a thing of sensuous beauty that has
a mind for nothing but its own charms. The Vene-
tian masters, the Italian opera composers, appeal to
the eye, to the ear, only. Their northern rivals do
not rest satisfied with that. A Diirer, a Wagner,
appeals in addition to the intellect. With us Ger-
man Art is not simply a matter of beauty, it has
been to our greatest masters a matter of thought.
Not content with pleasing us by magnificent form,
splendid colour, sweet melody, they have striven
to spread fructifying ideas, to weave their whole
psychical experience into their work.
There is much to be said for both sides. The
singing-birds are many; they do not strain our
capacities, and they surely delight. The majestic
eagles are few, and seldom do they rise up out of
the crowd of mean marauders; but when we do
see one soaring higher and higher, so that we can
barely follow him—is there anything grander?
No doubt Art, especially painting, should pri-
marily be an effort at formal beauty; with that
unattained, all else is worthless. Who would nowa-
days enter the lists in the cause of the once famous
artists of the beginning of this century, artists who
sought to disseminate great ideas, but could not
even draw a simple figure correctly and had not a
whit of feeling for colour? Yet, if a man has once
mastered these media, if he is a perfect draughts-
man and a fine colourist, shall we not value him
more when he uses these means to lay his inward
life before us, rather than merely picture scenes of
outward Nature ?
Klinger, the man of whom this article treats,
appears to be a genius of this kind, an artist who,
as a flawless mirror, reflects the dress of Nature, and
above that unveils Nature's most interesting pheno-
menon—the working of the human mind. He is
now thirty-seven years old, looks back upon an
almost unparalleled activity, and has just stepped
AX KLINGER. BY
HANS W. SINGER.
Morelli (Lermolieff), that able
authority and enthusiast on Italian
Art, exclaimed in a transport of joy over his
adopted countrymen, " We Italians are singing-
birds ; you Germans up there, are birds of prey ! "
The comparison seems harsh and unjust, yet
there is at bottom a grain of truth. The singing of
the South, Italian Art, is a happy, light and fluent
manifestation, a thing of sensuous beauty that has
a mind for nothing but its own charms. The Vene-
tian masters, the Italian opera composers, appeal to
the eye, to the ear, only. Their northern rivals do
not rest satisfied with that. A Diirer, a Wagner,
appeals in addition to the intellect. With us Ger-
man Art is not simply a matter of beauty, it has
been to our greatest masters a matter of thought.
Not content with pleasing us by magnificent form,
splendid colour, sweet melody, they have striven
to spread fructifying ideas, to weave their whole
psychical experience into their work.
There is much to be said for both sides. The
singing-birds are many; they do not strain our
capacities, and they surely delight. The majestic
eagles are few, and seldom do they rise up out of
the crowd of mean marauders; but when we do
see one soaring higher and higher, so that we can
barely follow him—is there anything grander?
No doubt Art, especially painting, should pri-
marily be an effort at formal beauty; with that
unattained, all else is worthless. Who would nowa-
days enter the lists in the cause of the once famous
artists of the beginning of this century, artists who
sought to disseminate great ideas, but could not
even draw a simple figure correctly and had not a
whit of feeling for colour? Yet, if a man has once
mastered these media, if he is a perfect draughts-
man and a fine colourist, shall we not value him
more when he uses these means to lay his inward
life before us, rather than merely picture scenes of
outward Nature ?
Klinger, the man of whom this article treats,
appears to be a genius of this kind, an artist who,
as a flawless mirror, reflects the dress of Nature, and
above that unveils Nature's most interesting pheno-
menon—the working of the human mind. He is
now thirty-seven years old, looks back upon an
almost unparalleled activity, and has just stepped