August Macke
We present today's painting thanks to Kunstmuseum Bern where currently you can see a special exhibition that takes an in-depth look at the modern masters collection from the perspective of its acquisition history. The exhibition highlights issues such as "degenerate art" and "intellectualization as a national defense mechanism” in Switzerland. Enjoy!
Well-dressed men and women sit in the shadow of trees chatting in a garden restaurant. A waiter at the top left, and a dog at the bottom left, watch the peaceful scene. In the foreground a man is reading a newspaper.
A small study in oils from 1907 served as a model for the artist‘s painting. While the study is no more than a sketch, it is based more closely on nature than our painting. Macke has carried over most of the figures directly, but the shapes have been extremely simplified and brightly colored. The shapes and colors on the edge of the painting, in particular, follow their own rhythm separated from visible reality. The artist himself wrote: "The external choice of the motif is not what should be discussed, but the sensitivity, the vitality that dominates the whole thing. And I believe we are arriving at a vitality that is different from that of other ages, and here the simultaneous organization of dissonances will play the biggest role."
Art is therefore not a copy of nature, but an analogy of it. And for a painting to appear vital, it needs contrasts. In the colors of our painting, the contrast between the complementary green and red tones dominates. The smaller dynamic green areas are on the left and upper edges of the painting; the larger red and brown areas define the rest of the painting's area. Yellow spots are scattered over the entire canvas; while the white areas that become smaller towards the back lead the eye to the center of the painting. People are depicted in a simplified form, often without a face; and carefully painted areas contrast with others that are only sketched.
August Macke was born in Westphalia, Germany in 1887. He trained as an artist at the Academy of Art and the Arts and Crafts School in Düsseldorf. In the year this picture was painted (1912) he was living in Bonn; joined the "Blue Rider" group of artists in Munich; and visited the painter Robert Delaunay in Paris with Franz Marc. In October 1913, he settled with his family in Hilterfingen on Lake Thun in the Bernese Oberland in Switzerland.
In the spring of 1914, he traveled to Tunisia with Paul Klee and Louis Moilliet. At the beginning of August of the same year, shortly after World War I broke out, he was called up for military service. The 28-year-old Macke was killed barely two months later in Champagne, France.