Kronberg (kb) – The Worpswede artists’ colony was born 1889 out of the artists’ yearning for the unique nature of the Devil‘s Moor (Teufelsmoor) – a place where painting in the open air and rural life fused.
The Worpswede School was first mentioned when Fritz Mackensen, Otto Modersohn, Hans am Ende, Fritz Overbeck and Heinrich Vogeler exhibited together at the Bremen Kunsthalle at the end of 1895 and shortly afterwards celebrated their successful breakthrough at the Munich Glaspalast. Very soon afterwards, Worpswede established itself as a veritable magnet for artists.
Of the first generation of the Worpswede artists‘ colony, Mackensen was more of a figure painter than a pure landscape painter in contrast to the pure landscape artists Otto Modersohn and Fritz Overbeck. Hans am Ende cultivated the purest pictorial composition with his wide landscapes of Worpswede and an expressive sky. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who often stayed in Worpswede, saw in Ende‘s painting the harmonious interplay of colour and composition, ‘Hans am Ende paints music,‘ he once enthusiastically praised his painting. So, at the centre of the exhibition which is currently at the Museum Kronberger Malerkolonie, are the birch groves painted by Ende throughout the seasons .
The influence of ‘Barkenhoff‘
The golden age of the so-called ‘Barkenhoff’, an abandoned farmhouse that Heinrich Vogeler had converted to a magnificent Jugendstil villa, played an important role in the development of the Worpsweder artists’ colony. The artist‘s residence with its imposing white steps and the white, bright Jugendstil gable can also be seen in the background of Vogeler’s painting of his oldest daughter Marie-Luise. A second painting shows the view into Vogelers ornate garden with its geometric box hedges and flower beds. Vogler also planted a small birch grove which gave the estate its name. There were regular gatherings of artists and frequent parties which were attended regularly by the married couples Modersohn and Vogeler and Rainer Maria Rilke, Clara Rilke-Westhoff, and there were many guests who participated, among them Gerhart Hauptmann, Thomas Mann and the founder of the Inselverlag publisher Rudolf Alexander Schoeder. Voglers early painting and his etchings “Spring” and “In May” are clearly part of the Jugendstil movement and influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites. Like them, Vogeler transposed biblical themes and legends into a native landscape and imbued them with an effect of romantic yearning.
In any exhibition of Worpswede artists, Otto Modersohn and especially the artist Paula Modersohn-Becker, his wife, 11 years his junior, are essential to include. Paula was one of the first women in Germany who devoted herself entirely to painting. To this day, she is considered to be a pioneer of Modernism. Already at the end of July 1900, Paula wrote the much quoted lines in her diary, words which would make her legendary: “I know that I won’t live long. But is that then sad? Is a celebration more beautiful because it is long? And my life is a celebration a short, intense celebration.” In 1907 she gives birth to her daughter Mathilde and dies shortly afterwards from an embolism. Paula left a body of work which probably only her husband realised the importance of during her lifetime. In 1917 he published her letters and diaries which reflected her short and dynamic life in the intertwined stories of painting, poetry, love, yearning and suffering. These have inspired countless writers and film directors to make an immense wealth of films and books. It is thanks to her that Worpswede is still considered to the most famous artists’ colony in Germany. The exhibition can be seen at the Kronberger Malerkoloniemuseum on Wednesdays from 15 to 18 p.m. and on Saturdays and Sundays from 11 to 18 p.m. until 22 March.
Paula Modersohn-Becker
The most famous painter of the Worpswede artists‘ colony was Paula Modersohn-Becker. She was born in Dresden in 1876 and moved to Bremen with her family in 1888. After having decided to become a painter, she moved to Worpswede in 1898. Her teacher in Worpswede was Fritz Mackensen, the founder of the artists‘ colony. Here she also met Otto Modersohn (1865-1943), whom she married in 1901. She travelled to Paris for the first time in 1900 to develop a new, modern and distinctive style of painting. Her work was influenced by that of Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin and the Nabis. However, Paula Modersohn-Becker was also fascinated by the antiquities that she studied in the Louvre. She stayed in Paris from February 1906 on, but returned to Worpswede on the request of her husband in March 1907. In the same year she gave birth to a daughter and died in November 1907 at the age of 31. Paula Modersohn-Becker was indubitably one of the pioneers of modern art in Europe. Her works exhibit a remarkable simplicity of form. She usually selected local children, old women or farmers‘ wives as models for her portraits and established her own individual style.
