Dora Koch-Stetter, Das Rote Haus in Althagen, 1911, oil on canvas,
40,3 x 40,4 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum Rostock.
PRESS RELEASE
Atlanta : Oglethorpe University Museum of Art presents
Masterpieces from European
Artist Colonies, 1830-1930
from Public & Private
European Art Collections
February 8 through May 22, 2005
Preview February 6
European Artist Colonies
Artist Colonies emerged all over Europe between the middle of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth century. More than a hundred Artist Colonies developed all over Europe. These Artist Colonies became the birthplace of significant artistic trends in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the artists through their work there became the forerunners and pioneers of impressionism, realism, symbolism, post-impressionism, surrealism and expressionism.
Artists fleeing the pressures of city life left their urban studios and sought out small, rural locations where they would stay for varying amounts of time and allow themselves to be inspired by the natural environment. It provided artists throughout the world with a new way of seeing. They all were looking for the primal simplicity of nature. In the still unspoiled villages and surrounding countryside they discovered new themes for their art. A common motive was the need to release themselves from the dominant control of the academy and the rigid rules to which an art work was expected to conform. A new development in art at the time was painting in the open air, en plein air. Social relations also developed among artists in these new artist communities or colonies. The village hotel often provided a meeting place where ideas were exchanged, potential buyers entertained - sometimes mediated by the owner of the hotel - and parties were held.
Such famous artists as Millet, Corot, Courbet, Daubigny, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Kandinsky, Marc, Jawlensky, Werefkin, Hölzel, Pechstein, Liebermann, Dix, Müller-Kaempff, Gustave De Smet, Boulenger, Erikson, Westerholm, Krøyer, Mondrian, Toorop, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Karoly Ferenczy and many other top master-artists highlight this remarkable European artistic movement.
The Artist Colonies also attracted poets, writers, musicians, intellectuals, idealists and tourists. The period of boom for most of these colonies ended around the time of the First World War. The modernization of the villages meant that their 'authentic' character vanished and their attraction for artists waned.
The Artist Colonies developed first in France, then in Germany, in Belgium,
in the Netherlands, in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, in Russia, Hungary,
Poland, Lithuania, Italy, Romania, Austria, in Switzerland and England. This
movement of Artist Colonies is a real art historical phenomenon covering over
the last 170 years more than 130 artist colonies. Despite the considerable geographical
distance and diverse cultural traditions, there are impressive similarities
of creative accomplishment throughout all the artist colonies.
A number of Artist Colonies contributed to major developments in painting. The naturalist painting of the Barbizon School spread across Europe from the mid-nineteenth century and strongly influenced the way artists in other colonies viewed the world. The Synthetist painting of Paul Gauguin and Émile Bernard in Pont-Aven became extremely important to the painting of the twentieth century. The strong desire to travel felt by many artists led to the diffusion of new ideas. Other colonies too contributed to new developments in art, even if these developments often originated elsewhere. Artists found a period at an artist colony highly stimulating.
The artists from many of these European villages - even more than 170 years ago - made contacts and exchanges with each other, and the colonies themselves were often centers of international exchanges and artistic interaction. However, this dissipated in many of the colonies during the course of the two world wars in Europe .
It is important to reanimate these European contacts and interactions of Artists - demonstrating that these famous historic Artist Colonies are still alive today and will continue to be active and lively cultural centers and focal points of intellectual and artistic activities.
They should be reactivated at a European level as artist cities/towns and play a dynamic role by stimulating, initiating and interchanging artists' activities in the same pioneering spirit that fostered the Artist Colonies of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. At the same time, the consciousness for a common European cultural heritage should be promoted as an essential contribution for the development of a European identity.