CULTURAL STUDIES: JOHN McBRATNEYreviews Munich: It's Golden Age of Art and Culture 1890-1920, by Rainer Metzger, Thames & Hudson, 375pp, £24.95
ON THE title page of this book it is stated that there are 466 illustrations, of which 387 are in colour. While some of the illustrations cover complete pages, text appears on many pages, either above or below an illustration, with a margin of varying widths depending on the dimensions of the illustration. At a rough estimate, about one third of the 375 pages are covered by text.
The period chosen starts shortly after the death of the eccentric King Ludwig II, who is famous for his support of Wagner and the building of Neue Schwanstein, and continues beyond the first arrival into the city of Hitler in 1913. At that stage his malevolent star had not begun to ascend and, as the text states, “on 13th October 1920 . . . he mentioned anti-Semitism for the first time in his speeches . . . The rest is history.”
While the period chosen may appear to be relatively brief, the title encompasses a wide diversity as is illustrated by the five chapter titles: (1) The Many Facets of a City of Art; (2) Salons and Secessions – Munich’s Golden Age, which is divided into three sub-chapters: (i) The Establishment: Princes of Art and Carnival, (ii) The Deviants: Youth and its Style, and (iii) Personae Non Gratae: the Blessings of Censorship; (3) Decadence and the Avant Garde – Munich enters the 20th Century, which is divided into four sub-chapters: (i) Aspects of a Decline and Fall, (ii) Bohemians, Esoterics, Innovators: the Schwabing Scene, (iii) Der Blaue Reiter and (iv) Thomas Mann; (4) Style and Symmetry – Munich Aesthetics 1890-1920; and (5) Movements and Manifestos – the Intrusion of Politics. This is a vast array of topics to discuss and to do so in a mere 100 pages-plus is a very tall order indeed. Apart from the likes of Thomas Mann and Wassily Kandinsky, there is often little but snippets of information given about the vast array of other persons named. To a certain extent this problem is alleviated by a photograph or a portrait of the person or his work. But however impressive these are, and many of them are indeed impressive, the social and artistic cauldron that the text appears to seek to describe remains stubbornly off the boil.
Two watering holes are described in some detail: the artists’ bar known as Simplicissimus, and a cafe theatre, Die elf Sharfrichter, and the excellence of the posters for each create the strong impression that these must have been fine places to engage in convivial discussion on the meaning of art. In particular, in relation to Simplicissimus there is a double-page photograph from circa 1905 of its proprietor, one Kathi Kobus, standing with glass in hand, surrounded by her clientele, most of whom are near a drink, and in the forefront a girl sits playing what looks like a mandolin. Her eyes look a little bit glazed. The person who took the photograph obviously did not advise everyone to smile, as they all look a little bit serious, but the spirit of the place is, I suspect, captured by a seated, bearded and bespectacled man with his glass raised to Kathi Kobus, who returns the compliment. Delightful.
But the lack of text often manifests itself. For example, there is a splendid portrait of Heinrich Thannhauser by one Max Oppenheimer. Heinrich Thannhauser was one of the great gallerists of the 20th century, whose Moderne Galerie was a jewel. His legacy and that of his son forms the Thannhauser Collection, one of the treasures of the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum in New York. There is also illustrated a very fine poster by Oppenheimer for his exhibition in 1911 in the Moderne Galerie. Unfortunately there is not a word in the text devoted to Oppenheimer. Even if it is a pleasure to behold the portrait and the poster, it is difficult not to be somewhat frustrated.
Given the period, inevitably the first World War throws more than a shadow and in relation to Der Blaue Reiter, August Macke and Franz Marc, two of its most important contributors, died at the front in 1914 and 1916. In addition, the social consequences of the war cannot be avoided, and there is a photograph from May 1919 which covers a double page and is entitled Famine in Munich. The carcass of a horse is torn to pieces on the pavement. The horror of this photograph, which its title invokes, is intensified by an apparently well-dressed couple watching, with matter-of-fact interest, the disembodiment. But again, frustratingly, there is no text dealing with the citizens and their starvation.
However in all this turmoil of artistic endeavour and human folly, the photograph of Thomas Mann stands supreme. It commands a page in the body of the book and forms the back of the dust jacket. Mann has an intense gaze, complemented by the gleam of his jacket buttons, and he holds elegantly a half-open book. It is a great photograph.
John McBratney is a barrister