Heinrich Vogeler

Heinrich Vogeler

Heinrich Vogeler was artistically productive for over 50 years and left behind a body of work that unites different stylistic epochs, techniques, work forms and artistic means of expression. This diversity resulted neither from a will to adapt to the respective zeitgeist nor from arbitrariness. Heinrich Vogeler's entire oeuvre is borne by an idealistic-utopian basic attitude, which took on an ever stronger political contour in the course of his life. Despite his artistic versatility, he never understood his talent as a means of individual expression. He placed his actions in the service of other people, communities or political goals of change. Due to universal talent, he was active in the fields of painting, book illustration, printmaking, etching and wall fresco. He also worked as an architect and interior designer, furniture, furnishing and wrought-iron designer. His individually developed stylistic device in painting was the complex picture.

Heinrich Vogeler's fame is based on the first period of his work. In the cultural memory he is anchored as an important Art Nouveau artist and co-founder of the artist colony Worpswede. Moreover, he had a decisive influence on the aesthetic language of form of the Insel publishing house when it was founded in 1901. The Insel-Bücherei series still follows the guidelines of decorative-ornamental aesthetics from Vogeler's Art Nouveau period in its cover design. It was thanks to Vogeler that the then unknown Rainer Maria Rilke was able to publish his first volume of poetry with Insel-Verlag. This marked the beginning of his worldwide fame. A book of poems by Vogeler himself ("DIR") was also among the early publications of the publishing house. In his first creative phase, Vogeler often used late Romantic, fairy-tale, Christian and symbolist motifs, which he frequently inserted into the landscape of the Worpswede Devil's Moor. In keeping with this motivic orientation, he illustrated Grimm's folk tales or the edition of Hofmannthal's "Der Kaiser und die Hexe" for the Insel publishing house, among others.

The central location for Vogeler's commitment became the Barkenhoff for decades. From the former farmer's cottage in Worpswede he created in 1895 an artistic synthesis of the arts consisting of architecture, interior design and gardens. It became the central meeting place for the Worpswede Artists' Association, founded in 1894, with guests, spouses and relatives. The group did not follow a common artistic program. This resulted in contradictions. The painter Paula Becker-Modersohn created paintings in which the reality of poverty and old age became visible. Vogeler reflected intensely on the contrast between her paintings and his own dreamy, romantic scenes. In addition, Rilke accused him of being too decorative in his art. This developed into an artistic crisis for Vogeler. His painting "Summer Evening" from 1905 is considered an iconic work. It shows the Worpswede group at the Barkenhoff. Although they are making music together, the arrangement of the people expresses the divisiveness that is breaking the community. Vogeler then shifted his focus from architectural and design works. The First World War became a caesura. He then turned to socialist ideals and developed his stylistic device of complex pictures from influences of Expressionism and Cubism. These did not fit the guideline of the communist Soviet Union, to which he emigrated in 1931. His last creative period was in the service of Socialist Realism.

Heinrich Vogeler

Art Nouveau

Wikipedia: Heinrich Vogeler