DOI article:
Bartning, Ludwig: A decorative landscape painter: Paul Schultze-Naumburg
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20710#0229
Paul Schultze-Naumburg
the decisive act of the artist-politicians ; recognition
of the "new painting" by the public was the
result.
Schultze-Naumburg did not adopt the revolu-
tionary methods merely as such, but he tested
their quality, and appropriated what was sound
in them. His pictures of this date bear witness
to a continual study of the newly-raised problems
•of light and colour, and of the technical methods
■of dealing with them. He took part in the founda-
tion of the " Secession," and, being a teacher and
educator, both by natural gifts and by the strong
bent of his whole nature, in his first book, " Studium
und Ziele der Malerei" (" The Study and Aims of
Painting") he tried logically to make clear the
principles for which they were fighting, and to
bring home to the general comprehension all that
was as yet unfamiliar in those principles. This
book already contained the suggestion of a far
higher and more distant aim, just as his pictures of
that period were signalled out from among those of
his fellow-artists by a markedly individual, peculiarly
poetic and dreamy feeling; and for this reason he
was never recognised by the Secessionists as quite
one of themselves.
The new discoveries had originated in the in-
vestigation of certain hitherto undetected optical
phenomena in the constitution of the visual picture
of nature. The danger of this was lest an art
which concentrated itself upon this one aim should
over-externalise, should place the appearance above
the essential reality, the optical illusion above the
emotional concept. As a matter of fact the
movement as a whole fell into this snare the
moment it had at last attained to public and
official recognition.
By that time Schultze-Naumburg was already
standing quite outside the movement. His release
had come about naturally ; he had returned to his
home. The haunts of his childhood, where every
tree, every stone, every house, was known and
loved, awakened in him such a deep love of home
and of his native land, such joy in its charm and
tender poetry, that he ceased to regard the problems
of light and colour, the fascinations of painting,
facile technique, and the laborious striving after
new impressions, as the highest objects of his en-
deavour. He wanted so to represent his home
that in his pictures every one should see and
appreciate that wonderful and little known country,
"CASTLES IN THE VALLEY OF THE SAALE" BY PAUL SCHULTZE-NAUMBURG
212
the decisive act of the artist-politicians ; recognition
of the "new painting" by the public was the
result.
Schultze-Naumburg did not adopt the revolu-
tionary methods merely as such, but he tested
their quality, and appropriated what was sound
in them. His pictures of this date bear witness
to a continual study of the newly-raised problems
•of light and colour, and of the technical methods
■of dealing with them. He took part in the founda-
tion of the " Secession," and, being a teacher and
educator, both by natural gifts and by the strong
bent of his whole nature, in his first book, " Studium
und Ziele der Malerei" (" The Study and Aims of
Painting") he tried logically to make clear the
principles for which they were fighting, and to
bring home to the general comprehension all that
was as yet unfamiliar in those principles. This
book already contained the suggestion of a far
higher and more distant aim, just as his pictures of
that period were signalled out from among those of
his fellow-artists by a markedly individual, peculiarly
poetic and dreamy feeling; and for this reason he
was never recognised by the Secessionists as quite
one of themselves.
The new discoveries had originated in the in-
vestigation of certain hitherto undetected optical
phenomena in the constitution of the visual picture
of nature. The danger of this was lest an art
which concentrated itself upon this one aim should
over-externalise, should place the appearance above
the essential reality, the optical illusion above the
emotional concept. As a matter of fact the
movement as a whole fell into this snare the
moment it had at last attained to public and
official recognition.
By that time Schultze-Naumburg was already
standing quite outside the movement. His release
had come about naturally ; he had returned to his
home. The haunts of his childhood, where every
tree, every stone, every house, was known and
loved, awakened in him such a deep love of home
and of his native land, such joy in its charm and
tender poetry, that he ceased to regard the problems
of light and colour, the fascinations of painting,
facile technique, and the laborious striving after
new impressions, as the highest objects of his en-
deavour. He wanted so to represent his home
that in his pictures every one should see and
appreciate that wonderful and little known country,
"CASTLES IN THE VALLEY OF THE SAALE" BY PAUL SCHULTZE-NAUMBURG
212