DOI Heft:
No. 70 (January 1899)
DOI Artikel:Singer, Hans Wolfgang: Modern german lithography, [1]: Greiner and some Dresden artists
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19230#0293
Modern German Lithography
pleasure in depicting. Most of his compositions best is black-and-white. But he has occasionally
consist of nothing more than a grouping of nudes. made concessions to the spirit of the times in his
He has etched, drawn, engraved, and lithographed attempts to create a harmony between the paper
many remarkable designs, but they are in reality and the printer's ink by interposing one or two tone
only wonderful studies, not pictures. Some of his plates. He has also lithographed a few designs
latest lithographs have been executed in a somewhat wherein not only tones, but actual colours were
broader style again. Perhaps, like Diirer, he has employed. They compare with real colour-litho-
discovered that it is bad judgment to over elaborate graphs, however, much as a tinted drawing corn-
designs and employ an extremely delicate technique, pares with a real water-colour. The composition
because such work will not stand the wear of the would be complete and intelligible had no colour-
printing-press. He has also attempted scraped stones been added, but the tints are superposed
lithography, the other process in which Menzel and form no integral part of the design,
won laurels, but he was less successful with it, and Glancing over the lithographs by Greiner—a
abandoned it after a few trials. little under fifty in all—we find that portraiture
The interest recently awakened for lithography constitutes an important item. About the first
has within a very short space of time come to be lithograph he ever did was a portrait of his fellow-
fixed almost exclusively on lithography in colours, apprentice, Muhlan, 1889. During the next year,
There are very few artists to-day in Germany who which he spent at Munich, he drew a number of
engage in simple black-and-white work; the possi- friends and colleagues on stone, among them
bility of attaining new colour effects, which is H. Hess, Kollermann, Kopfstein, Schall, and
greater in this than in any other of the graphic Schifferdecker. These are, like all the rest of his
arts, fascinates them. Greiner has not yet reached portraits with but one exception, full length figures,
this stage; his most characteristic work and his They are excellently drawn in a rapid, effective,
sketchy manner, and ap-
pear to be telling like-
nesses. Among the later
portraits those of the
Munich author, W. Wei-
gaud, of Richard Wagner's
son Siegfried (here repro-
duced), and a large one
done in 1897 of his former
drawing master Haferzorn,
are worthy of notice.
Among the large and
more pretentious compo-
sitions, the programme-
design for a booksellers'
banquet at Leipsic has
been brought to the notice
of a wider circle, by the
circumstance that Mr.
Joseph Pennell reproduced
it in his Pen Drawing and
Pen Draughtsmen. Greiner
employed two tone plates,
while the drawing itself
was printed in red in place
of the usual black. It is a
fair sample of the peculi-
arities of his style, good
and bad. It shows the ex-
traordinary delicacy of line,
PORTRAIT OF MR. SIEGFRIED WAGNER. FROM A LITHOGRAPH BY OTTO GREINER nis happy facility of model-
262
pleasure in depicting. Most of his compositions best is black-and-white. But he has occasionally
consist of nothing more than a grouping of nudes. made concessions to the spirit of the times in his
He has etched, drawn, engraved, and lithographed attempts to create a harmony between the paper
many remarkable designs, but they are in reality and the printer's ink by interposing one or two tone
only wonderful studies, not pictures. Some of his plates. He has also lithographed a few designs
latest lithographs have been executed in a somewhat wherein not only tones, but actual colours were
broader style again. Perhaps, like Diirer, he has employed. They compare with real colour-litho-
discovered that it is bad judgment to over elaborate graphs, however, much as a tinted drawing corn-
designs and employ an extremely delicate technique, pares with a real water-colour. The composition
because such work will not stand the wear of the would be complete and intelligible had no colour-
printing-press. He has also attempted scraped stones been added, but the tints are superposed
lithography, the other process in which Menzel and form no integral part of the design,
won laurels, but he was less successful with it, and Glancing over the lithographs by Greiner—a
abandoned it after a few trials. little under fifty in all—we find that portraiture
The interest recently awakened for lithography constitutes an important item. About the first
has within a very short space of time come to be lithograph he ever did was a portrait of his fellow-
fixed almost exclusively on lithography in colours, apprentice, Muhlan, 1889. During the next year,
There are very few artists to-day in Germany who which he spent at Munich, he drew a number of
engage in simple black-and-white work; the possi- friends and colleagues on stone, among them
bility of attaining new colour effects, which is H. Hess, Kollermann, Kopfstein, Schall, and
greater in this than in any other of the graphic Schifferdecker. These are, like all the rest of his
arts, fascinates them. Greiner has not yet reached portraits with but one exception, full length figures,
this stage; his most characteristic work and his They are excellently drawn in a rapid, effective,
sketchy manner, and ap-
pear to be telling like-
nesses. Among the later
portraits those of the
Munich author, W. Wei-
gaud, of Richard Wagner's
son Siegfried (here repro-
duced), and a large one
done in 1897 of his former
drawing master Haferzorn,
are worthy of notice.
Among the large and
more pretentious compo-
sitions, the programme-
design for a booksellers'
banquet at Leipsic has
been brought to the notice
of a wider circle, by the
circumstance that Mr.
Joseph Pennell reproduced
it in his Pen Drawing and
Pen Draughtsmen. Greiner
employed two tone plates,
while the drawing itself
was printed in red in place
of the usual black. It is a
fair sample of the peculi-
arities of his style, good
and bad. It shows the ex-
traordinary delicacy of line,
PORTRAIT OF MR. SIEGFRIED WAGNER. FROM A LITHOGRAPH BY OTTO GREINER nis happy facility of model-
262