DOI Heft:
No. 94 (January, 1901)
DOI Artikel:Blei, Franz: Peter Behrens, a German artist
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19786#0266
Peter Behrens
ists, even at that period his pictures had a quality reproduced it in Mother's Joy, and this impression
which proved him to be merely a scholar and is so strong that we find the lines of the human
guest in the school, with no intention of becoming form as the predominant note in all the artist's
a master in it. later work, even in his ornamentation.
It was portraiture that emancipated Behrens from It was the human profile that unveiled to
Pleinairism ; at least, so it seems to me. It must Behrens the essence of style in art. This essence is
have been the study of the human face and form the line, the simple reproduction of nature in
which set free what had been hitherto latent colour; light and form is merely a matter of
within him. Before him is a female figure ; he technique and has per se nothing to do with style,
arranges the pose, and the scales fall from his eyes Style is determined by the line, by the character,
when he sees the profile, the powerful, eloquent line changes, luxuriance, combinations and infinite
of forehead, nose, lips and chin, the whole lineal variety of the line.
revelation of the soul in the face, such as he has The profile, which freed Behrens' individuality at
a blow from all external
fetters, and taught him
where his true power lay
led him, as I have said,
to the line. The works
that followed upon this
discovery bear witness to
the joy it gave him. He
painted Die Tratcer. It is
not the mourning woman
that fills us with the sense
of sadness before this pic-
ture, but the whole sym-
phony of characteristic
lines. The picture does
not speak the language of
thought or feeling, for this
is foreign to the plastic
arts, but the sensual speech
of visible signs. Behrens
goes still further in another
picture, which he calls
A Dream. The motif
is here still simpler. The
earthly component of our
existence—sea, land, and
the figure of a young man
—unfolds itself before us
in a horizontal line, the
transcendental component
being the vertical line of
the dream-figure, and
the laurel of phantastic
glory. I do not mean to
imply that the artist, when
he felt impelled to paint
this picture, consciously
employed the mathematical
forms of the horizontal and
vertical line, but he em-
"TKOCKNE BLUMEN" FROM A CHROMO-XYLOGRAPH BY PETER BEHRENS ployed them Unconsciously,
238
ists, even at that period his pictures had a quality reproduced it in Mother's Joy, and this impression
which proved him to be merely a scholar and is so strong that we find the lines of the human
guest in the school, with no intention of becoming form as the predominant note in all the artist's
a master in it. later work, even in his ornamentation.
It was portraiture that emancipated Behrens from It was the human profile that unveiled to
Pleinairism ; at least, so it seems to me. It must Behrens the essence of style in art. This essence is
have been the study of the human face and form the line, the simple reproduction of nature in
which set free what had been hitherto latent colour; light and form is merely a matter of
within him. Before him is a female figure ; he technique and has per se nothing to do with style,
arranges the pose, and the scales fall from his eyes Style is determined by the line, by the character,
when he sees the profile, the powerful, eloquent line changes, luxuriance, combinations and infinite
of forehead, nose, lips and chin, the whole lineal variety of the line.
revelation of the soul in the face, such as he has The profile, which freed Behrens' individuality at
a blow from all external
fetters, and taught him
where his true power lay
led him, as I have said,
to the line. The works
that followed upon this
discovery bear witness to
the joy it gave him. He
painted Die Tratcer. It is
not the mourning woman
that fills us with the sense
of sadness before this pic-
ture, but the whole sym-
phony of characteristic
lines. The picture does
not speak the language of
thought or feeling, for this
is foreign to the plastic
arts, but the sensual speech
of visible signs. Behrens
goes still further in another
picture, which he calls
A Dream. The motif
is here still simpler. The
earthly component of our
existence—sea, land, and
the figure of a young man
—unfolds itself before us
in a horizontal line, the
transcendental component
being the vertical line of
the dream-figure, and
the laurel of phantastic
glory. I do not mean to
imply that the artist, when
he felt impelled to paint
this picture, consciously
employed the mathematical
forms of the horizontal and
vertical line, but he em-
"TKOCKNE BLUMEN" FROM A CHROMO-XYLOGRAPH BY PETER BEHRENS ployed them Unconsciously,
238