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Taschen
publishes some very fine art books. This one focuses on the "New
Objectivity" circle within the German Expressionist school.
224 pages with lots of beautiful full color reproductions.
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BACK
TO EXPRESSIONISTS
Ruhr
Struggle (Ruhrkampf)
Barthel
Gilles
Egg Tempera on Wood 1930
In Ruhrkampf,
the artist portrayed a battle that took place ten years
earlier in the Ruhr industrial area between radical workers
and the regular army and police. The workers had been on
strike and were suffering terrible repression - they eventually
turned to arms for self defense. Fighting soon broke out
with the authorities and escalated to civil war proportions.
The workers were defeated by the army and police only after
hundreds of workers had been killed. Gilles'
painting reveals a little known truth, that many Germans
resisted the rise of the right, and the years leading up
to Hitler's rule were ones of intense conflict.
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Gilles
was a member of the German Communist Party (KPD)
and during the Nazi era was prohibited from painting or
exhibiting his work publicly. Though an obscure and little
known artist today, Gilles was a master of the difficult
medium of egg tempera. His dynamic and realistic Ruhr
Struggle was such a painting done on wood. As the older
Expressionist groups associated with the November revolution
began to dissipate in the late 20's, a new school of Expressionism
came to the forefront... Neue Sachlichkeit (New
Objectivity). Gilles
was considered part of this new school of
Expressionism, which put more emphasis realism.
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