Painters From Germany

"Since the loss of the Merzbau [his former studio in Hannover, which was a big sculpture (5 x 4 x 4,5 meters) I did a lot of small sculptures.."

"In Hanover I built, before Hitler's time, a studio called Merzbau. This has been reproduced very much, also in the book 'Dada, Surrealism, Fantastic Art' of the Museum of Modern Art N.Y. I would like to go to Germany for restoring the Merzbau.. .Could I come with you to an agreement that you give me for this purpose some money? For example that I give you some pictures for the money and use it for restoring the studio.. .Or would you prefer that you own with me half and half?.."

"I was thrilled, and I mean really thrilled, when I read that parts of the Merzbau could still be buried under the ruins. Whatever the circumstances. I will try and come to Hannover to salvage it.. ..wait until I arrive, for the Merzbau is made of plaster of Paris and could easily be damaged. However by working slowly I am sure I can save parts. And it is certainly worth it, because it [his 'Merzbau'] is my life's work. And in the opinion of people abroad it was seen as a new form of art."

"Please help me, in order to get us invited [to the United States]. Helma [his wife] will then come later and I will work there and soon pay back the people who lend me the money. But finally I must get out of this internment [because the English mistrusted Schwitters, being a German] and further away from Norway, I want to be with all of you. Please get it done quickly and write to me about the outcome. Maybe my art is in danger and I, of course, with it. At last I would like to work on my abstracts again and find appreciation for them. Who knows what will happen?"

"A museum that really wants to promote modern art might give the artist a guaranty, on certain conditions, so that he can get on with his life and his creations. Or do you believe that the museum is more interested in the artist's death, in order to see the price of his paintings go up?"

"Rrummpff tillff toooo?"

"Rinnzekete bee bee nnz krr müü? ziiuu ennze, ziiuu rinnzkrrmüü, rakete bee bee,"

"Dedesnn nn rrrrr, Ii Ee, mpiff tillff too, tillll, Jüü Kaa?"

"dll rrrrr beeeee bö dll rrrrr beeeee bö fümms bö, rrrrr beeeee bö fümms bö wö, beeeee bö fümms bö wö tää, bö fümms bö wö tää zää, fümms bö wö tää zää Uu:"

"Oooooooooooooooooooooooo,"

"Fümms bö wö tää zää Uu, pögiff, Kwii Ee."

"The custom official was desperate, he did not know whether they were pictures, wood ware or even arms [about his abstract collage art, Schwitters exported to France in 1939]. I got the impression he had an inner struggle with two options, either to have me arrested or to call the lunatic asylum. Finally he did not want to make a fool of himself, and accepted they were paintings, especially because another customs official knew me personally and confirmed that I was an artist."

"Nevertheless I like being in Norway [to escape the Nazi threat Schwitters fled to Norway, c. 1937], for it is a country of unparalleled beauty.. .I paint landscapes and portraits, model portrait, glue and paint abstract pictures and glue abstract plastic art; besides, I write poetry in German.. .What distresses me most of all is that I cannot live in my 'Merzraum' [a sculptured studio-space, Schwitters had built in Germany in the 1920's, but bomb-damaged in the war] and that it may be given up to destruction. For that reason I ask you once more, can you keep your ear to the ground again, to see if anyone in America is willing to give me an opportunity to shape a three-dimensional room?"

"I know that I am an important factor in the development of art and shall forever remain so. I say this with great emphasis, so that one can not say, at a later date: 'The poor fellow had no inkling of how important he was'. No I am no fool, nor am I timid. I know full well that the time will come for me and all other important personalities of the abstract movement, when we will influence an entire generation. However, I fear that I shall not experience this."

"In the war [World War 1.] things were in terrible turmoil. What I had learned at the academy was of no use to me and the useful new ideas were still unready.. .I felt myself freed and had to shout my jubilation out to the world. Out of parsimony I took what I could find to do this, because we were now an impoverished country. One can even shout with refuse, and this is what I did, nailing and gluing it [gluing his collage art] together. I called it 'Merz'; it was a prayer about the victorious end of the war, victorious as once again peace had won in the end; everything had broken down in any case and new things had to be made out of the fragments; and this is Merz. [quote, 1930]"

"So I spit back at you, Huelsenbeck But where you spit venom, I spit art I laugh at you -- HA HA -- I laugh at you"

"Well, art is not communist -- not bourgeois either It's no club and has no party line Not wild nights make an artist -- not drugs or manifestos It's art -- HA HA -- that's no secret The one who makes art -- he's the artist.."

"So, Huelsenbeck has put our feud in print -- HA HA So he sneers at my bourgeois home -- my child who cries, who has to be changed and fed So he laughs at my solid wife -- that she's no Anna Bloom..."

"Eternity last longest."

"Just as soon as the great and glorious Revolution broke out [1918 - after World War 1.] I gave notice and now live entirely for art. For a while, I tried to create new forms of art from the remains of the old culture. From this Merz painting emerged, painting that happily used every material – Pelikan [was a famous ink mark, then] colors or the rubbish from the rubbish heap. So I experienced the Revolution in the most delightful way and pass for a Dadaist, without being one. As a result, I could introduce Dadaism in Holland [together with Theo van Doesburg and his wife Nele] with complete impartiality. In Holland I became familiar with architecture for the first time."

"I cannot make a living out of art and I now occupy myself with a variety of things. Of course, I continue to paint and to nail, but in particular I write grotesques and art reviews for newspapers, I organize evenings [a.o. with Theo van Doesburg ] and draw commercial art for newspapers."

"It is not the word that is the original material of poetry, rather the letter."

"Consistent poetry is made of letters. Letters have no idea. Letters as such have no sound, they offer only tonal possibilities, to be valuated by the performer. The consistent poem weighs the value of both letters and groups."

"Classical poetry counts on people's similarity. It regards idea associations as unequivocal. This is a mistake. In any case, it rests on a fulcrum of idea associations: 'Above the peaks is peace.'.. .The poet counts on poetic feelings. And what is a poetic feeling? The whole poetry of peace / quiet stands or falls on the reader's ability to feel. Words are not judged here."

"Kurt Schwitters is the inventor of Merz and I, and aside of himself, he recognizes no one as a Merz artist or an I artist with highest regards."

"Today every child knows what Merz is. But what is 'i'? I is the middle vowel of the alphabet and the designation for the consequence of Merz in relation to an intensive apprehension of the art form. For the shaping of the work of art Merz uses large ready-made complexes that count as material, to shorten as much as possible the path leading from the intuition to the actualization (Sichtbarmachung) of the artistic idea, so as to avoid heat loss through friction. i defines this path as o (i setzt diesen Weg = null). Idea, material, and work of art are the same. i apprehends the work of art in nature. Here the artistic shaping is the recognition of rhythm and expression in a part of nature. Thus, no loss through friction i.e., no disturbing distraction during creation occurs here."

"Art is a spiritual function of man, which aims at freeing him from life's chaos. Art is free in the use of its means in any way it likes, but is bound to its laws and to its laws alone. The minute it becomes art, it becomes much more sublime than a class distinction between proletariat and bourgeoisie."

"We, the founders of Dada-movement try to give time its own reflection in the mirror."

"The medium is as unimportant as I myself. Essential is only the forming.. .I take any material whatsoever if the picture demands it. When I adjust materials of different kinds to one another, I have taken a step in advance of mere oil painting, for in addition to playing off color against color, line against line, form against form etc., I play off material against material, wood against sack clothes."

"In his introduction to the recently published 'Dada Almanach' [1920], Huelsenbeck writes: 'Dada is making a kind of propaganda against culture'. Thus Huelsendadaismus is politically oriented, against art and against culture. I am tolerant and allow everyone his own view of the world, but am compelled to state that such an outlook is alien to Merz. Merz aims, as a matter of principle, only at art, because no man can serve two masters.. .. Merz energetically and as a matter of principle rejects Herr Huelsenbeck's inconsequential and dilettantish views on art."

"Merz stands for the freedom of all fetters.. .Merz also means tolerance towards any artistically motivated limitation. Every artist must be allowed to mould a picture out of nothing but blotting paper, for example, provided he is capable of moulding a picture."

"Merz paintings are abstract works of art. The word 'Merz' essentially means the totality of all imaginable materials that can be used for artistic purposes and technically the principle that all of these individual materials have equal value. Merz art makes use not just of paint and canvas, brush and palette, but all the materials visible to the eye and all tools needed.. ..the wheel off a pram, wire mesh, string and cotton balls – these are factors of equal value to paints. The artist creates by choosing, distributing and reshaping the materials."

"Merz art strives for immediate expression by shortening the path from intuition to visual manifestation of the artwork.. ..they will receive my new work as they always have when something new presents itself: with indignation and screams of scorn."

"My name is Schwitters, Kurt Schwitters.. .I'm a painter and I nail my pictures.. .I'd like to be accepted into the Dada Club"

"Dada rejects emphatically and as a matter of principle works like the famous 'Anna Blume' [poem, published in 1919] of Kurt Schwitters"

"One needs a medium. The best is, one is his own medium. But don't be serious because seriousness belongs to a passed time. This medium, called you yourself will tell you to take absolutely the wrong material. That is very good, because only the wrong material used in the wrong way, will give the right picture, when you look at it from the right angle. Or the wrong angle. That leads us to the new ism: Anglism. The first art starting from England [the country of Schwitters' forced stay, when he wrote this quote], except the former shapes of art."

"When I was born 20.6.[18]87, I was influenced by Picasso to cry. When I could walk and speak I still stood under Picasso's influence and said to my mother: 'Tom' or 'Happening', meaning the entrances of the canal under the street. My lyrical time was when I lived in the Violet Street. I never saw a violet. That was my influence by Matisse because when he painted rose I did not paint violet. As a boy of ten I stood under Mondrian's influence and built little houses with little bricks. Afterwards I stood under the influence of the Surrealists.. .I never stood under the influence of Dadaism because whereas the Dadaist created Spiegel-dadaismus (Mirror-Dada) on the Zurich Lake, I created MERZ on the Leine-river, under the influence of Rembrandt. Time went on, and when Hans Arp made concrete Art, I stayed Abstract. Now I do concrete Art, and Marcel Duchamp went over to the Surrealists.. ..and at all I have much fun about Art."

"Cry, Art, cry and lament loudly, nobody nowadays wants you."

"Abstract artists, far removed from this earth, or fugitives from it, sometimes forget that Nolde exists. Nor so I, even on my furthest flights, from which I always manage to find my way back to earth to rest in the gravitational force I find there. Nolde is more than 'of' the earth, he is the sphere's guardian spirit. Domiciled elsewhere oneself, one is always aware of the cousin in the deep, the kinsman of one's choice."

"In Hamburg, I was not able to find Artin. On the other hand, I did visit a large exhibit of Nolde's work, which left a lasting impression upon me. Later, back in Paris, I spoke enthusiastically of him to several friends who were devotees of modern painting. One of them, who ran a well-known art gallery, cut me short: "He has never been exhibited in Paris." Apparently, this settled his hash."

"Between Utenwarf and Seebüll [near Neukirchen ], Nolde found the landscape that promised to fulfill a yearning - one of the fundamental experiences of German Expressionism - a yearning for the fusion of the self and the cosmos, the striving for the 'primal states' of human life, when the outer world and the inner world were still one."

"..The same sense of the.. ..individuality and the nature-given force of a material that led Nolde in his etchings to allow the etching acid, above all, to work, made him use in his woodcuts not the end of the block, which had been utilized until then, but the long side.. .With Nolde it is precisely on the structure of the wood that the language of his cuts comes to depend and by which it is stimulated."

"I had innumerable visions at that time [c. 1903]; wherever I looked, Nature was alive, the sky, the clouds, on every stone and among the branches of the trees, everywhere my creatures stirred and lived their still or wild, lively lives, arousing my excitement and crying out to be painted."

"His pictures [of Nolde, which Jawlensky met in 1912] remind me of my own in the strength of their expression. I have a passionate love for Nolde and his art."

"To get straight to the point, the local group of artist called Die Brücke would reckon it a high honor to be able to welcome you as a member. Of course you will know as little about Die Brücke as we knew about you before your exhibition at [Arnold's [gallery Arnold at Dresden]. Now, one of the aims of Die Brücke is to attract all the revolutionary and fermenting elements to itself – that's the meaning of the name Brücke [Bridge]. The group also arranges several exhibitions a year, which it sends on tour in Germany.. .Now, dear Herr Nolde, think as you like and what you like, we hope this offer is the proper price for your tempests od colour."

"a later confession to his friend [art-teacher]; as quoted by , in Expressionism; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, p. 76"

"When I was a child, eight or ten years old, I made a solemn promise to God that, when I grew up, I would write him a hymn for the prayer-book. The vow has never been fulfilled. But I have painted a large number of pictures, and there must be more than thirty religious ones. I wonder if they will do instead."

"If I were tied to the letter of the Scriptures and rigid dogma, I believe I could not have painted these profoundly felt paintings about the Eucharist and the 'Pentecost' [religious paintings, he made c. 1909-11) I had to be artistically free - not have God before me. like a steely Assyrian ruler, but God in me, hot and holy like Christ's love."

"They [his own fantasies he made in strange pencil drawings then] hover before me now in drifting color, more beautiful than I can possibly paint them.. ..I yearn for the day when I will have found my color harmonies, my harmonies."

"..colors are my notes for fashioning sounds and chords with and against one another."