| Large Bright Showcase | |
|---|---|
| German: Großes helles Schaufenster | |
 | |
| Artist | August Macke |
| Year | 1912 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 106.08 cm× 82.8 cm(41.76 in× 32.6 in) |
| Location | Sprengel Museum, Hanover |
Large Bright Showcase is an oil-on-canvas painting by the German artist August Macke, executed in 1912. It is held at the Sprengel Museum in Hanover.
The painting was created by Macke probably in November 1912. It was created after he had seen the canvases of the Italian Futurists at the Rhine Salon of Arts, in Cologne. The Rhine Salon presented works from a traveling exhibition of Futurists that had previously had been shown in Paris, London and in Berlin, at the gallery "Sturm". Macke had visited Cologne with his friend Franz Marc. He shared his impressions of the exhibition in letter to Bernhardt Köhler, dated of October 12, 1912. [1]
A futuristic view of the big city life turned out to be a subject that appealed to Macke. Later, in 1913, the artist developed several variations of the theme of this painting, and in 1913, in Hilterfingen, he painted Fashion Store (German:Modegeschäft).
Macke's large-format canvas is reminiscent of Umberto Boccioni's painting The Street Enters the House (Sprengel Museum, Hanover, 1912), which was also exhibited at the Salon of Rhine. Like Boccioni, Macke's composition is centered on a female figure, but instead of houses and passers-by that are repeated and seen flowing over each other, a vortex of many reflections in the showcase glass is formed around the woman. Items displayed in a sunlit display case combine with the reflections of horses harnessed to carriages and people passing by. Mirror glass, where different plans are combined, lines whimsically intersect, embodies the bright, brilliant and hectic life of a metropolis. Paint strokes, mixing chaotically, help to visualize the street noise. [2]
Like Boccioni, Macke uses the cubist technique, breaking into separate planes the wall of the house on the right, thus emphasizing the instability of the composition. Here he also shows the influence of Robert Delaunay, whose painting Simultaneous Windows he had seen in Paris at the end of October 1912. [3] [4]
Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related artistic movements in music, literature, and architecture. In Cubist works of art, the subjects are analysed, broken up, and reassembled in an abstract form—instead of depicting objects from a single perspective, the artist depicts the subject from multiple perspectives to represent the subject in a greater context. Cubism has been considered the most influential art movement of the 20th century. The term cubism is broadly associated with a variety of artworks produced in Paris or near Paris (Puteaux) during the 1910s and throughout the 1920s.
Franz Moritz Wilhelm Marc was a German painter and printmaker, one of the key figures of German Expressionism. He was a founding member of Der Blaue Reiter, a journal whose name later became synonymous with the circle of artists collaborating in it.
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane, and the industrial city. Its key figures included the Italians Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Fortunato Depero, Gino Severini, Giacomo Balla, and Luigi Russolo. Italian Futurism glorified modernity and according to its doctrine, aimed to liberate Italy from the weight of its past. Important Futurist works included Marinetti's 1909 Manifesto of Futurism, Boccioni's 1913 sculpture Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, Balla's 1913–1914 painting Abstract Speed + Sound, and Russolo's The Art of Noises (1913).
Umberto Boccioni was an influential Italian painter and sculptor. He helped shape the revolutionary aesthetic of the Futurism movement as one of its principal figures. Despite his short life, his approach to the dynamism of form and the deconstruction of solid mass guided artists long after his death. His works are held by many public art museums, and in 1988 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City organized a major retrospective of 100 pieces.
Robert Delaunay was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstract. His key influence related to bold use of colour and a clear love of experimentation with both depth and tone.
Der Blaue Reiter is a designation by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc for their exhibition and publication activities, in which both artists acted as sole editors in the almanac of the same name, first published in mid-May 1912. The editorial team organized two exhibitions in Munich in 1911 and 1912 to demonstrate their art-theoretical ideas based on the works of art exhibited. Traveling exhibitions in German and other European cities followed. The Blue Rider disbanded at the start of World War I in 1914.
August Robert Ludwig Macke was a German Expressionist painter. He was one of the leading members of the German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter. He lived during a particularly active time for German art: he saw the development of the main German Expressionist movements as well as the arrival of the successive avant-garde movements which were forming in the rest of Europe. As an artist of his time, Macke knew how to integrate into his painting the elements of the avant-garde which most interested him. Like his friend Franz Marc and Otto Soltau, he was one of the young German artists who died in the First World War.
Orphism or Orphic Cubism, a term coined by the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire in 1912, was an offshoot of Cubism that focused on pure abstraction and bright colors, influenced by Fauvism, the theoretical writings of Paul Signac, Charles Henry and the dye chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul. This movement, perceived as key in the transition from Cubism to Abstract art, was pioneered by František Kupka, Robert Delaunay and Sonia Delaunay, who relaunched the use of color during the monochromatic phase of Cubism. The meaning of the term Orphism was elusive when it first appeared and remains to some extent vague.
Gino Severini was an Italian painter and a leading member of the Futurist movement. For much of his life he divided his time between Paris and Rome. He was associated with neo-classicism and the "return to order" in the decade after the First World War. During his career he worked in a variety of media, including mosaic and fresco. He showed his work at major exhibitions, including the Rome Quadrennial, and won art prizes from major institutions.
Dr. Bernhard Sprengel was a German chocolate manufacturer and modern art collector.
The August-Macke-Haus or August Macke House is a museum in Bonn, Germany, opened in 1991, dedicated to the expressionist painter August Macke. It is located in Macke's former home, where he lived from 1911 to 1914. The museum displays reconstructed interiors and houses temporary exhibitions, usually focusing on Expressionism. In the August-Macke-Haus, Macke's studio has been restored, including furniture from his Tegernsee days. A basic archive of Rhenish Expressionism is available in addition to a reference library.
The Street Enters the House is an 1912 oil on canvas painting by Italian artist Umberto Boccioni. Painted in the Futurist style, the work centres on a woman on a balcony in front of a busy street, with the sounds of the activity below portrayed as a riot of shapes and colours.
Les Baigneuses is a large oil painting created at the outset of 1912 by the French artist, theorist and writer Albert Gleizes (1881–1953). It was exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris during the spring of 1912; the Salon de la Société Normande de Peinture Moderne, Rouen, summer 1912; and the Salon de la Section d'Or, autumn 1912. The painting was reproduced in Du "Cubisme", written by Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger the same year: the first and only manifesto on Cubism. Les Baigneuses, while still 'readable' in the figurative or representational sense, exemplifies the mobile, dynamic fragmentation of form and multiple perspective characteristic of Cubism at the outset of 1912. Highly sophisticated, both in theory and in practice, this aspect of simultaneity would soon become identified with the practices of the Section d'Or group. Gleizes deploys these techniques in "a radical, personal and coherent manner". Purchased in 1937, the painting is exhibited in the permanent collection of the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
Girl Running on a Balcony is a 1912 painting by Giacomo Balla, one of the forerunners of the Italian movement called Futurism. The piece indicates the artist's growing interests in creative nuances which would later formally be realized as part of the Futurist movement. The artist was heavily influenced by northern Italians' use of Divisionism and the French's better-known pointillism. Created with oil on canvas just on the brink of World War I, the Futurist movement is embodied by a dark optimism for a future of speed, turbulence, chaos, and new beginnings. Most of Giacaomo Balla's pieces allude to the wonder of dynamic movement, and this painting is no exception. The oil painting is now in the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Milan.
Les Joueurs de football, also referred to as Football Players, is a 1912–13 painting by the French artist, theorist and writer Albert Gleizes. The work was exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants, Paris, March–May 1913. September through December 1913 the painting was exhibited at Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon, Berlin. The work was featured at Galeries Dalmau in Barcelona, 29 November – 12 December 1916, Gleizes' first one-person show. The work was again exhibited at Galeries Dalmau 16 October – 6 November 1926. Stylistically Gleizes' Football Players exemplifies the principle of mobile perspective laid out in Du "Cubisme", written by himself and French painter Jean Metzinger. Guillaume Apollinaire wrote about Les Joueurs de football in an article titled "Le Salon des indépendants", published in L'Intransigeant, 18 March 1913, and again in "A travers le Salon des indépendants", published in Montjoie!, Numéro Spécial, 18 March 1913.
Dynamism of a Cyclist is a 1913 oil painting by Italian Futurist artist Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916) that demonstrates the Futurist fascination with speed, modern methods of transport, and the depiction of the dynamic sensation of movement.
Woman with Umbrella in Front of a Hat Shop is an oil-on-canvas painting executed in 1914 by the German painter August Macke. It depicts a woman peeking into a hat shop, painted in an Expressionist style. The painting is in the collection of the Museum Folkwang in Essen.
Lady in Green Jacket is an oil-on-canvas painting by German artist August Macke, executed in 1913. It is held in the Museum Ludwig in Cologne.
Girls in Green, also known as Girls under Trees, is an oil-on-canvas painting by the German painter August Macke, executed in 1914. It depicts a number of girls among the trees on the edge of a lake, where the color areas of the figures and the environment seem to merge. The painting is in the collection of the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich.
Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon was the title of an art exhibition that was organized in 1913 by Herwarth Walden in Berlin.
Media related to Großes helles Schaufenster by August Macke at Wikimedia Commons