To illustrate the interest of turn-of-the-20th century painters in the biological aspects of human existence, growing processes and the spring of life, Latvian art history literature usually offers two vivid examples from the collection of the State Museum of Art 'Jubilant Children' (190 I) by Janis Rozentals (1866-1916) and 'Bathing Boys' (c. 1900) by Johann Waiter (1869-1932), a Latvian-born artist of German origin who changed his last name to Walter-Kurau after the move to Germany in 1906 but is usually called Janis Valters by Latvians. In an earlier publication, I have already interpreted the first of these pictures as part of a bucolic line in Rozentals' creativity that brought him from an impressive painterly symbiosis of spring awakening in nature and human life to the velvety sensuousness of his 'Sun Maidens' (1912) featuring the transformation of a typically impressionist love of light into a sort of mystical sun-dreaming. The present paper in turn explores the artistic progress of Walter's life-long fascination with the interplay of light and water in his numerous versions of 'Bathing Boys', painted between c. 1900 and 1926 in Latvia and Germany. Beside the above-mentioned treasure of the State Museum of Art - one of the most beloved pictures by several generations of Latvians - this part of his heritage includes the masterly 'Boys near Water' (c. 1900) at the Tukums Museum, a number of recently discovered private possessions and several reproductions of supposedly lost works. The first appearance of young bathers in his imagery coincided with the very height of the subject's international popularity. Bathing children were eagerly painted by Liebermann and Landenberger in Germany, Kroyer in Denmark, Edelfelt in Finland, Sorolla in Spain and numerous other artists all around Europe. Walter joined this company by sending one of his turn-of-the-century boy bathing scenes to the 3rd Exhibition of the Berlin Secession (1901) and the 4th Exhibition of the 'World of Art' In St. Petersburg (1902).
The Latvian painter and draughtsman Peteris Krastins (1882-c. 1942/43), whose promising artistic career was ruined by a mental disease in the early 1910s, so far has been mostly remembered for his dreamy vision of the Jardin de Luxembourg in the permanent exposition of the State Museum of Art in Riga. This publication brings into discussion another, almost obscure aspect of his work - numerous sketchy depictions of the domestic North Latvian scenery, produced in pastels, watercolor or mixed soft media on various rough paper backgrounds of different color. These particularly small and delicate, but boldly stylized series of clouds, forests, marshes and bogs in the graphic collection of the State Museum of Art date back to 1905-1907 when Krastins was studying stage design in the Stieglitz Central School of Technical Drawing in St. Petersburg. Marked by daring simplicity of form, associative use of color and texture, and overpowering intensity of feeling, the studies convey the artist's heartfelt empathy with the life of nature and represent emotional experiences ranging from moody lyricism to anxiety, depression and fear. 'They look very much like colored drawings, yet it seems that the drawing has no other use than to conduct the grand symphony of color. ( ...) And every fragment is brimming with life and vitality, even though the whole is veiled in a deep melancholy', the writer, artist and critic Janis Jaunsudrabins wrote in 1908. Krastins' evocative landscape miniatures are a perfect supplement to the greatly earth-bound picture of early-20th-century Latvian art, but, as their formal and emotional particularity set them apart from the painted work of other compatriots, helpful analogies should be sought elsewhere In terms of emotional expression and formal stylization, similar effects in their landscapes were frequently achieved by Jan Stanislawsky, Edvard Munch, Emil Nolde, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Adolf Hoelzel, Waiter Leistikow, the early Piet Mondrian, Mikolajus Konstantinas Ciurlionis and other artists of international reputation.
The reader is invited to follow the researcher on her way from the abbreviated signature marks to obvious or hidden clues for eventual attribution of their owners and further on to often extraordinary biographies. The venture results in bringing together a colourful society of personalities interested in art who were born between the late 1840s and mid 1880s and who represented partly incompatible aesthetic platforms and basically moved within the area between St. Petersburg and German cities, the most distant sites of activity being located in the USA. Among these people, architect and art historian Wilhelm Neumann (1849-1919) is one of the very few who already hold a place of prominence in our cultural history, but his regular reviews for ‘Rigaer Tageblatt’, signed with -n, N., N-n, -nn or W. N-n, still is an almost obscure fragment in the work of this versatile intellectual. Other dramatis personae elucidated in the narrative are: Woldemar Baron von Mengden (1867-1939, sign. W. B. M.) - secretary of the Riga Art Society (Riga(sch)er Kunstverein); Friedrich Moritz (1866-1947, sign. -tz) - painter and art critic of ‘Düna-Zeitung’ in Riga until his emigration to Berlin in 1906; Ernst von Blumenthal (1872-?, sign. -en-, -um-) - section editor of ‘Duna-Zeitung’ and afterwards ‘Rigasche Zeitung’; Alfred Blumenthal (1876-after 1939, sign. Alfred Bl., A. Bl., B-l (?)) - art-interested freelance contributor to ‘Düna-Zeitung’, Wilhelm Neumann’s godson but most likely no close relative of the editor; Dr. Alfred Ruetz (1876-1955, sign. A. R.) - co-publisher and editor of ‘Rigasche Rundschau’, next to his father Richard Ruetz; Gerhard von Rosen (1856-1927, sign. G. v. R.) - painter and contributor to ‘Rigasche Rundschau’; Wilhelm Sawitzky (1879-1947, sign. W. S., S-y) - culture journalist in Tallinn (‘Revalsche Zeitung’) and Riga (‘Rigasche Rundschau’, ‘Rigasche Neueste Nachrichten’, ‘Baltische Post’) until 1911 when he left the Baltics for the USA to become a prominent researcher of early American painting in his later life; and many others.
The article reconstructs the history of the first short-lived Latvian-owned art salons that were founded in Riga from 1909 till the mid-1910s. Their interpretation in publications on Latvian early-20th-century art so far has been limited to vague and inaccurate references. However, many of these inaccuracies can be eliminated by a number of recent discoveries. The story begins in December 1909 when painter, writer and critic Janis Jaunsudrabins first inquired who was to blame that 'Riga, which, in cultural matters, is one of the best cities in Russia' is like an orphan where the art of painting is concerned. He concluded that 'above all things, an art salon is needed, where painters could present their works', and announced that such a salon would in the coming days be opened by photographer Janis Rieksts at 17 Alexander (now 41 Brivibas) Street. In January 1910 Rieksts set up an exposition featuring Baltic artists of different generations, nationalities and level: Janis Rozentals and Vilhelms Purvitis, Theodor Kraus and Gerhard von Rosen, Bernhard Borchert and Eva Margarethe Borchert-Schweinfurth, etc. Unlike many of his fellow nationals, Rieksts promoted an international vision of art, and his consulting partner was the artists' club 'Kunstecke' ('Corner of Art'). The need of additional investments made Rieksts drop this business. Grieving over the failure of Rieksts' well-intended art-dealing initiative, one could turn hopefully to the National Romanticist building of Kenins Schools at 15/17 Terbatas Street where the art section of Peteris Saulitis' book and art shop in December 1910 was reorganised into a separate salon, later named the Saulitis-Melderis (Saulit-Melder) Latvian Art Salon. In April the salon news were dominated by the name of Peteris Krastins, who had recently returned from abroad, and soon his solo-exhibition was organised, provoking fears whether any colleagues would ever dare to fill the salon space after him. While Rieksts believed in the inherent internationalism of art, the Saulitis-Melderis enterprise laid stress on Latvianness and Latvian-produced art. The popularity of the visual arts was lagging considerably behind the growing prosperity of Riga in other areas, and the first art salons one after another suffered commercial fiasco. Nonetheless these economically precipitate business activities were very timely diversifiers of the local art scene.
Although Eva Margarethe Borchert-Schweinfurth (1878-1964) has been repeatedly praised as the most interesting figure in the whole early-century Baltic German art of Latvia and Estonia, her reputation of the first lady in Riga art life by the World War I so far has not been based on detailed biographical investigations. To the deepest regret of the present-day State Museum of Art, Borchert-Schweinfurth's daring artistic statements, including her 1908 life-size self-portrait with a palette, are destroyed. With very few minor exceptions, it is exclusiveely from black-and-white reproductions of the Baltic Art Yearbook ('Jahrbuch fur bildende Kunst in den Ostseeprovinzen') that we now can learn something of this lost chapter in the local art history. Still a lot of press reviews, archive materials and other sources allow to reconstruct the artist's early career in a great detail, making this intriguing figure more real. Eva Margarethe Schweinfurth was the twelfth child of a wealthy Riga wine merchant, and her initial progress was similar to that of many other women artists of her class: Elise Jung-Stilling's Art School in Riga, drawing instructor's certificate from the St. Petersburg Imperial Academy of Art and several inspiring study years abroad, in Paris (1898, 1900 or 1901) and Munich (1901). Beside portraits, nudes, landscapes and interiors in oil, pastel, watercolour, various drawing materials and printing techniques, her first exhibitions included fantastic compositions suggesting a possible further development toward the fairy-land Symbolism of her future husband Bernhard Borchert's (1863-1945) work. In 1902 they married, and Eva Margarethe soon found her own true vocation in portraiture. Contemporary opinions about her mostly large-scale pastels and oil paintings of stately women images ranged from sheer admiration to resentment and rage. In about 1905-1910 Borchert-Schweinfurth visualised the spirit of modem womanhood in greatly impressive combinations of imposing attitudes with the 'vertical stripe manner', her bold Neo-Impressionist brushwork that marked the culmination of her creativity.
On 9 April 1933, several months after Hitler's rise to power in Germany, a group of devoted pupils opened the memorial exhibition of Johann(es) Walter-Kurau at Victor Hartberg's in Berlin Charlottenburg. Newspapers published different opinions about the art of the late Baltic painter, but most critics agreed that he has been a beloved and influential teacher. The late, modernist paintings of the 'prodigal son' Johann Walter (1869-1932), usually named Janis Valters by Latvians, are some of the most fascinating exhibits of the State Museum of Art in Riga, although our knowledge about his life and work as Johann(es) Walter-Kurau in Dresden (1906-1916) and Berlin (1917-1932) so far has been very poor. Now much of this blank area may be covered by helpful references to recent publications about his Berlin pupils Otto Manigk (1902-1974), Karen Schacht (1900-1987), Else Lohmann (1897-1984), Hans Zank (1889-1967) and Willy Gericke (1895-1970) by German art historians striving to save several forgotten names from the undue obscurity of the 'lost generation', or art collectors wishing to gain their admission to prominent international sales. Alongside a number of archive materials, catalogues and German press publications, this eclectic, contradictory literature, ranging from fruits of enthusiastic life-long connoisseurship and trustworthy studies on particular women artists to deliberate art-historical fakes, allows us to reconstruct the history of Walter's busy Gervinusstrasse studio in Berlin-Charlottenburg, but a copy of the artist's manuscripts helps to understand the theoretic background of his mature views and creativity. Walter's own much admired authority as a great, generous man and a teacher par excellence was the Russian landscapist, professor Arkhip Kuinji (1841-1910). In his painting and theory, however, Walter drew inspiration from other sources, and his aim in the late 1920s and early 30s was the 'missing link between Impressionism and the abstract art of the day'.
'If we accept that painting has nothing to do with language and that it can be no less international than music, then there still remains something disputable. It is generally known that every nation tries to develop its particularity as much as an individual tries to develop his one', Latvian writer, art critic and painter Janis Jaunsudrabins wrote in the newspaper 'Latvija' in January 1910, where he commented on the rise of the multi-national Baltic Artists' Association (Baltischer Kunstlerbund) and came to a strictly nationalist conclusion: 'To foster this national particularity, our artists must develop more intimate contacts among themselves and with their nation. An organization that unites four or even five nations under German banner will never have such aims that our painters would like to set for themselves.' Jaunsudrabins was neither absolutely wrong nor right but like most of his contemporaries he was deeply concerned with the national question - constantly present in the art life of the future Latvia since the late 19th century until the rise of the independent national state. In this emancipation period of Latvian national professional art the local art scene was dominated by German and Latvian cultural forces whose co-existence ranged from mutual interest and inspiring rivalry to politicised conflicts. Focusing on contact areas in the artistic interests of those ethnic groups which inhabited the Baltic provinces of the Russian Empire, the article explores this scene as a field of interplay between local patriotism, nationalism and the art's general universalism in a changing society that was disturbed by historical collisions. The story covers roughly two decades from the Latvian Ethnographic Exhibition 1896 over the storms in and around the revolution year 1905 until the eve of World War I.
Latvia still marked the border of the Russian Empire's Baltic provinces and a nation state had yet to spring from the Latvian-inhabited parts of the tsarist realm. Focusing on locally unknown information sources, the undertaken survey shows this aspect of art history as a promising field for future research and allows us to dispute some oversimplified assumptions about artistic migration. Furthermore, it helps to place the emigre life of painter Johann Walter-Kurau (1869-1932) in a context of related developments. The address register in the catalogue of the Latvian Art Exhibition 1910 lists Riga 12 times, St. Petersburg - 11 times, minor Latvian towns and country places - 4 times, Jelgava - twice and Paris - once, but works by three artists were exhibited after their death. If we include those who were just seasonal residents in their native country, the number of Parisians alone would exceed that of the Jelgava artists, provincial artists and posthumous exhibitors. It should be remembered though, that their sojourn in the French capital was usually financed by post-graduate travel grants from the Stieglitz Central School of Technical Drawing, a rich private college of decorative arts and design in St. Petersburg. One of the lucky grant winners was Karlis Brencens (1879-1951), who went to study stained glass with Felix Gaudin. He recorded his Paris period in stylised sketches and made friends with Hermengildo Anglada Camarasa. One of those who set off for Paris, was a painter from Talsi, Frederic (originally Friedrich) Fiebig (1885-1953) whose 'long road from Latvia to Alsace' comprised a Paris period of more than two decades (1907-1929).
Jakob Belsen's art in the country of his forefathers remained associated almost exclusively with the ten oil paintings and water-colours shown in the Latvian Art Exhibition of 1910. Now the number of his paintings at the Latvian National Museum of Art (LNMA) in Riga can be counted on one hand. With four works of undisputed authorship and one of doubtful attribution, this is the largest public collection of Belsen's paintings in the world. Although three of these paintings are familiar to the public from Latvian art albums, exhibitions and catalogues, knowledge of the artist's life has been very poor even among experts, partly because of distances separating Riga from his basic places of residence - St. Petersburg, Berlin and New York. An avalanche of recent discoveries sheds new light on previously obscure periods and episodes in Belsen's life and career. Several of his paintings from the 1920s have newly appeared in Latvian private collections. Numerous supplements to his non-Latvian historiography have been found in publications of both his and our contemporaries. The St. Petersburg Regional Section of the Public Russian German Academy of Sciences held a memorial Belsen exhibition in 2001 and supplied the LNMA with a CD of its materials documenting the artist's productive work as illustrator and cartoonist as well as containing reproductions of private photographs. Some of these images have been used in this article by courtesy of Antonie Tosca Grill in Baden-Baden, whose father was a nephew of Jakob Belsen's first wife. My inquiries into the provenance of this picture archive resulted in a correspondence with Wenedikt Bohm (St. Petersburg) to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for copies of extremely important sources of biographical evidence.
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