„Mirabelle“ means „wonderfully beautiful“. A really quick recipe for a delicious jam
18. October 2018
Paper handkerchiefs and the “Blue Angel”. Can they have anything in common?
4. November 2018
“Paula Modesohn-Becker. Between Worpswede and Paris”
The exhibition title says it all. Paula Modersohn’s life actually oscillated between the nature inspired artists’ colony in northern Germany, which was more dedicated to a kind of back-to-the-roots “urban exodus”, on the one hand, and the great metropolis with its worldly flair, on the other. Strong artistic impulses emanated from both places.
Paula Modersohn-Becker seeks inspiration on her study trips, she visits galleries and museums, meets Rilke and Rodin. She is concerned with the very latest works of the French avant-garde as well as with the “exotic”, such as the then fashionable Japanese woodblock prints or ancient Egyptian mummy portraits. She studies Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin. All this flows into her work, which changes from a rather impressionistic mood painting to expressionistic expression. It becomes more massive and kind of “flat”, striving for “simplicity of form“, and often in bright colours, contrasting with hard contours that are darkly outlined.
Paula Modersohn-Becker. Museum tour through a biography
The von-der-Heydt-Museum in Wuppertal owns, along with Paula Modersohn-Becker’s hometown Bremen, probably the most of the artist’s paintings. So, what would suit better as a location for a large solo exhibition of the artist?
Paula Modersohn-Becker’s works are presented on the basis of her biography. And they are also shown together with the works of other artists who have strongly influenced her. Fritz Mackensen, her teacher in Worpswede. Otto Modersohn, whom she met in Worpswede and later married, left and returned back to. Heinrich Vogeler, Clara Rilke-Westhoff, who was also a close personal friend, or Fritz Overbeck. On the other hand, there are strong Parisian influences. Such as Auguste Rodin, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Èmile Bernard, Aristide Maillol, Bernhard Hoetger and Edvard Munch. They are also placed in the context of Paula Modersohn-Becker.
During her lifetime, her work was often met with incomprehension, was perceived as “strange” and “alienating”. Perhaps also because her depiction of (human) beauty did not always correspond to current aesthetic concepts. During her lifetime, she hardly sold a single painting.
The “Paula myth”
Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907), after a short life and only ten years of artistic work, left behind a very extensive and diverse oeuvre: Landscapes, still lifes, portraits (often of children whom she loved very much) and many (about 50!) self-portraits.
Especially in her portraits and self-portraits, Paula Modersohn-Becker tests a whole range of artistic expression. Both in the design and in the motifs. Two self-portraits can be seen in Wuppertal. One is a rather „conventional“ one, and shows her with a white pearl necklace (1906). But Paula Modersohn-Becker could also do quite differently. And this self-portrait caused a sensation, even quite an uproar, when she showed it.
Unfortunately not in the Wuppertal exhibition, but to be seen in Bremen, and certainly one of her most famous self-portraits is one that presents her as a naked, pregnant woman. Probably the first naked female self-act in art history. Interesting detail: when she painted this picture (dated and with a handwritten reference to her sixth wedding anniversary in 1906), she was not pregnant at all. Having her own child, however, was her great personal longing. She gave birth to her long-awaited daughter Mathilde in 1907, but she herself dies shortly afterwards of the consequences of an embolism.
Paula Modersohn-Becker’s biography, her artistic quest, her private misfortune, her intensive search for self-determination at a time when women were not allowed to attend art academies and often had to pay twice the school fees in private painting schools, has inspired many different interpretations. In biographies and novels about her life, and as a tragic film heroine. Sometimes rapturous, lyrical,sometimes almost iconically exaggerated, turning her almost into a leading figure of feminism. I can’t judge whether this is true. Anyway, Paula Modersohn-Becker definitely emancipated herself in any case.
Who is Paula? Why don’t you see for yourself?
The exhibition in Wuppertal, on the other hand, is not “excited” at all, but shows in a vivid way a strong, versatile artist who, unfortunately, was not granted more than ten years for her work. During this time, she has created many strong works that are still valid.
The Wuppertal exhibition of her work is embedded into biographical information and an artistic context that has been wisely and objectively prepared. Paula Modersohn-Becker’s own words, quotations from letters and diary entries, as well as comments by her companions round off her picture. Get to know Paula Modersohn-Becker. Make yourself an impression of her. This is instructive and interesting. Go there! Have fun!
