A New Approach to Impressionism at the Kunsthalle
BY HOLLY T .
Many of our members have been happy to encounter works by Manet , Renoir , and Pissarro in the collection of the Hamburger Kunsthalle . But few of us from the USA and other countries know much about the numerous works by German painters which also make up the museum ’ s considerable holdings of Impressionist art .
A new thematic arrangement of the Impressionist galleries hangs French and German artists side-by-side in an attempt to show how French Impressionists influenced their somewhat later German counterparts and how they differ in interests and approach . Works by Gretchen Wohlwill , Alma de Banco , and Victoria Dubourg are given new prominence here , enriching the presentation . A special treat are the many scenes of Hamburg by Pierre Bonnard , Éduoard Vuillard , and others who were invited to come paint our city by the first director of the museum , Alfred Lichtwark , for the Collection of Pictures from Hamburg he founded .
A telling comparison is drawn between urban river scenes by the German Lovis Corinth and Claude Monet . With crisp brushstrokes and strong contrasts , Corinth conveys the startling proximity of the noisy working Hamburg harbor to the leafy riverside parks across the Elbe . Monet similarly focuses on the encroachment of industry on modern life , rendering thick smog blanketing the crowded Waterloo bridge in London and distant smokestacks in a skein of short strokes of purples and blues and greens and pinks . This is one of 42 paintings of the same subject by Monet , each a unique exploration of the particular light and atmospheric conditions . Such intense investigation of purely sensual visual experience interested German painters less , but modern life and in particular the new leisure time enjoyed by the middle classes is a common denominator . Scenes of theatrical
Claude Monet ( 1840 – 1926 ) Die Waterloo-Brücke , 1902 , oil on canvas , 65 x 100 cm © Hamburger Kunsthalle / bpk Photo : Elke Walford
Pierre Bonnard ( 1867 – 1947 ) Detail from Lampionkorso auf der Außenalster , 1913 , oil on canvas , 37.5 x 47.5 cm © Hamburger Kunsthalle / bpk Photo : Elke Walford
or musical performances , parks and zoos , outdoor cafés and waterside activities abound on both sides of the Rhine . Though fascinated by the immediacy evoked by painters like Degas or Manet , their German counterparts for the most part eschewed the unusual compositional cropping and innovative color contrasts that so aptly conveyed the elegance of Parisian city dwellers . Yet Corinth ’ s blustery staging or Max Liebermann ’ s straightforward monochrome distillations of character to momentary postures , gestures , or expressions hold their own when capturing modern personalities of their time .
Monet ’ s Waterloo Bridge was given to the museum in 1927 by the widow of Albert Martin
Wolffson ( 1847-1913 ), a Hamburg lawyer who had collected paintings , drawings , and prints by his contemporaries from the Impressionist period . A rough reconstruction of the collection , which was rediscovered when the problematic Gurlitt “ hoard ” was found in Munich in 2012 , can be viewed on the lower level of the museum . Along with a Liebermann portrait of the collector from 1906 , a set of six “ proto-impressionist ” Impressionist drawings by the draftsman Adolf Menzel are highlights of this small exhibition . These , and numerous works the family was forced to sell in the Nazi era , were recently restituted to the heirs who have given them to the Kunsthalle on permanent loan .
34 In Hamburg