J. F Willumsen og Tyskland omkring århundredskiftet

Abstract

Summary During the years 1903–05. when Willumsen was once again living in Paris, he was contacted by the German art critic and writer, Julius Meier‐Graefe. The background for this contact was Willumsens's numerous exhibitions in Paris and Germany around the turn of the century. Meier‐Graefe needed information about Willumsens's art for his book Entwicklungsgeschichte der modernen Kunst which appeared in 1904. Meier‐Graefe was very critical of Willumsen's art. He considered that Willumsen's strength lay in ceramics. However, as for Willumsen's experiments with movement and geometrical structures, Meier‐Graefe compared his painting with that of the Swiss painter, Ferdinand Hodler, and this was certainly not meant as a compliment. On the contrary, to Meier‐Graefe this implied a lack of artistic ambition. To Meier‐Graefe it was modern French art which had made the necessary break with fossilized art, which to him was synonymous with German art. Nevertheless, this first contact between Willumsen and Meier‐Grae...