November 2022 – Andy Poystila

When I was growing up in high school, I was introduced to tons of different art movements through my classes or by my own discovery. The special few that I became inspired by were the surrealist movement and Dadaism in the 1910s-20s as well as the Avant-garde movement of the 20s. I was entertained by the ideas of uplifting your artistic potential with concepts of attentive dream theories, absurd whimsy, and the respectfully unorthodox and experimental. I believe that’s something that Kurt Schwitters of the 1920s alternative artistic scene did very well to portray in his work.

*Kurt Schwitters, London 1944 – ‘Nine Portraits’*

Kurt Schwitter (1887-1948) was a German Dada artist, poet and publisher that always worked to express his passion for the arts of any kind. It was the interest in collage making that inspired the Merz movement. The term he invented for his magazine is from the name of his most characteristic work in 1919, “DAS MERZFIELD” to call the collages he made from newspaper advertisements. Ultimately, Schwitters would use this medium to all his art activities and to the magazine he founded in Hannover in 1923. His style was made from collecting trinkets, junk, articles, old newspapers, pictures, string, wire etc and told his story of his feelings about art at the time. Schwitters also invented the Merzbau, which was a series of multimedia paper construction built into rooms of his house to look like an artistically surreal new world. Schwitters wrote many poems and articles in Merz. Some of them he called Merz Fairy Tales, which focused on ideas of full artistic freedom. art and stories in Merz desired to be creatively free from all restraints to shape things the way you intend to shape them artistically. Schwitter’s magazine also represented the idea that art can be anything and can have any kind of limitation, as long as the artist knows how to create.

He became highly appraised in the dadaist and surrealist movements, His old enemy finally debarred him from Dadaist activities and they became friends. As for the Nazis, when they came to power in 1933, they were offended by Schwitter’s visual artworks All of Schwitters’ fairy tales were considered provocative because the Nazis saw his work as “degenerate,” displaying as too abstract, too modernist and non-representational of any true German feeling or thinking.

Merz Magazine >

That wasn’t the end of Merz yet. The magazine continued to live on in Europe where Kurt lived as a refugee from the regime. For a short time, Schwitters lived in Lysaker near Oslo in 1937, where he worked on a new Merzbau house (all of the Merzbau projects were unfortunately destroyed by the Nazis.) Later, when the Nazis again invaded him, he spent a short time in a nazi internment camp, then he fled to London, England in 1940 . Schwitters spent the last years of his life writing Merz Fairy tales and making more and more collages. He was highly regarded by the avant garde artists there and was immediately welcomed when he immigrated over. There he began work on a third Merzbau space, but it was far from completion when he died at 61. Today, art historians consider the work of the Merzbau and Merz magazine, a developed sub-genre of Dadaism.

References:

Lecture11- Survey 8

“Schwitters Kurt (1887 – 1948).” A Biographical Dictionary of Artists, Andromeda, edited by Lawrence Gowing, Windmill Books (Andromeda International), 2nd edition, 1995. Credo Reference,https://ezproxy.capilanou.ca/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/andbda/schwitters_kurt_1887_1948/0?institutionId=6884 . Accessed 23 Nov. 2022.

Zipes, Jack. “Schwitters, Kurt (1887–1948).” The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales, edited by Jack Zipes, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2nd edition, 2015. Credo Reference, https://ezproxy.capilanou.ca/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/oupoft/schwitters_kurt_1887_1948/0?institutionId=6884 . Accessed 23 Nov. 2022.
“Merz.” A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes, Richard Kostelanetz, Routledge, 3rd edition, 2019. Credo Reference, https://ezproxy.capilanou.ca/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/routa/merz/0?institutionId=6884. Accessed 23 Nov. 2022.
http://www.designishistory.com/1920/kurt-schwitters/
Kłos, Anna. “Merz – Kurt Schwitters’ Combination of Art and Life.” Retroavangarda, Retroavangarda – International Project Promoting Artists Worldwide, 10 Dec. 2020, https://www.retroavangarda.com/merz-kurt-schwitters-2/.
Shipe, Timothy. “Kurt Schwitters 1887-1948.” Encyclopedia of German Literature, edited by Matthias Konzett, Routledge, 1st edition, 2000. Credo Reference, https://ezproxy.capilanou.ca/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/routgermanlit/kurt_schwitters_1887_1948/0?institutionId=6884. Accessed 24 Nov. 2022.
Burns, Lucy. “Degenerate Art: Why Hitler Hated Modernism.” BBC News, BBC, 6 Nov. 2013, https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24819441.

An older self-portrait by Mucha, 1907 Source

Most of Alphonse Mucha’s popular legacy is deep-seated into his famous Parisian posters of beautiful women posing for theatrical and commercial purposes… But, Mucha personally felt he was truly meant to create more meaningful art than just those works. He had always wanted to try Historical painting, and wanted to complete a series to display the accomplishments of Slavic Peoples in Europe throughout history since he was young. Once he had the ideas for this great project, he went to take photographs and sketches in Slavic countries like Russia and Poland to the Balkans in 1908 and 1909.

“I will be able to do something really good, not just for the art critic but for our Slav souls.” – writing from Alphonse Mucha to his wife in 1910.

The Slav Epic displayed many patriotic messages , He wanted to make sure that these pieces properly respected and celebrated the great historical achievements of the Slavic Peoples, Including Czechs, Russians, Poles, Serbs, Hungarians, Bulgarians, and the Balkans, not to forget the Orthodox monasteries of Mount Athos. Once he received funding for this great project from millionaire and revolution promoter Charles R. Crane, Mucha continued to create the twenty mural-sized (measured six by eight meters) paintings depicting the history of the Czech and the Slavic peoples. To paint them, he rented and lived in an apartment and a studio in the Zbiroh Castle in western Bohemia until 1928 when he finished. He had help from many costumed models, using both still and motion picture cameras to set the scenes with his models, and encouraged them to create their own poses. It took him 16 years to fully complete them all. He bestowed them to the city of Prague in the same year and they received great praise.

Modelling for No. 9 *The Meeting at Krǐžky*
by Alphonse Mucha, 1914/1915

In the late 1939, fascism was already starting to rise in popularity. German troops marched into Czechoslovakia and Mucha, a Slavic Nationalist and a Freemason, was among the first people to be arrested by the Gestapo. A lung infection started to affect him during the intense arrestment and interrogation process. When they released him, he never recovered from the poor conditions of his internment and also seeing his home invaded and overcome. He died in Prague on July 14, 1939 of pneumonia.

Mucha being known best for his work in the Art Nouveau movement was something he wasn’t a very big fan of.

“What is it, Art Nouveau?”…“Art can never be new.”

– Alphonse Mucha, a quote from his biographer and son, Jiří Mucha.
He instead took the greatest pride in his work as a history painter for The Slav Epic, which he considers his greatest masterpiece and is the work that is most spiritually tied to him and his birthplace. The pieces were rolled and stored away to be protected from the Nazis for twenty-five years before being shown at the chateau in Moravský Krumlov, the South Moravian Region in the Czech Republic in 1963. The pieces are currently being moved to be displayed in the Thomas Heatherwick-designed Savarin opening later in 2026.