Paper Topic:

Kurt Schwitters

br May 6 , 2007

Research

Kurt Schwitters

Kurt Schwitters Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948 ) is generally acknowledged as the twentieth century 's greatest master of collage . Just as collage is essentially the medium of irony , so Schwitters ' life is characterized by paradox and enigma . Born in Hanover , the only child of affluent parents , he was a loner in his youth , plagued by epileptic attacks , introverted and insecure , and as a student at the Dresden Academy of Art he proved as apt as he was unimaginative . Although his contact with Expressionist artists

in Hannover in 1916 gave him more confidence to develop his own style , even his most impressive works (such as Mountain Graveyard ) were little more than imitations of his contemporaries

A major challenge came in 1918 with the invitation to exhibit at Herwarth Walden 's notorious Sturm gallery in Berlin , for Walden had contacts with most progressive European artists , including the Zurich Dada group . Schwitters found further stimulus in the activities of the revolutionary Berlin Dadaists (The generally accepted story that Schwitters was rejected by Berlin Dada is , however not true ) But it was Hans Arp , himself a pioneer of collage , who first persuaded Schwitters to abandon his sterile academic techniques . Schwitters ' first known collage , Hansi , is strongly reminiscent of Arp 's work , and soon afterwards he began making assemblages from scraps of refuse , including one he called the Merz picture . Subsequently he referred to all his work as Merz

A Sturm exhibition of his new style in mid-1919 , which showed his abstract Merz works and some whimsical 'Dada drawings (such as The Heart goes from Sugar to Coffee ) caused a furore among the critics , as did his 'Anna Blume ' poem published in the same year . Schwitters thrived on public opposition , and from 1919 to 1923 he created a succession of Merz pictures which are now seen as his greatest contribution to twentieth century art . These pictures carry an inner tension that derives from the sensitive juxtaposition of abstraction and realism aesthetics and rubbish , art and life , and their innate dynamism is one of the characteristics of Merz . Schwitters stands alone in the consummate mastery of colour , the delicate balance of content and form and the intricate interplay of coarse and filigree displayed in Merzbild Rossfett the almost minimalist Revolving , using the barest of materials , conveys a mysterious shadowy rotating cosmos extending far beyond the bounds of the frame : in Construction for Noble Ladies , the precarious equilibrium of the disparate elements is stabilised only by the side-on portrait of Schwitters ' angelic and long-suffering wife Helma

Schwitters ' revolution came late - he was 32 at the time of the first Merz exhibition - but Merz changed his life radically . He suddenly found himself at the forefront of contemporary art and quickly allied himself with the avant-garde , including various European Dada groups , the Bauhaus (Schlemmer , Klee , Kandinsky , Feininger , Gropius ) and the new generation of Contructivists from Eastern Europe and the Netherlands (Lissitsky , Moholy-Nagy , Theo van Doesburg . By now his fantasy knew no bounds and over...

7 pages

16.9 KB

Free sing-up