Kollwitz (middle)
Tong Ziyun
Recently, the "Silent Cry - Kollwitz Works Exhibition" sponsored by the Yunshang Art Museum has attracted widespread attention, "I was shocked to see her works", "When the epidemic has passed, I want to go to the scene to see", netizens have left messages and likes in the live broadcast of the exhibition.
A few days ago, curator Tong Ziyun accepted an exclusive interview with a reporter from Beijing Youth Daily at the exhibition site, where he told the curatorial experience and story of the exhibition of Kollwitz's works, as well as new discoveries and new insights when translating and combing a large number of Kollwitz-related documents.
Needless to say, Kaisser Kollwitz is one of the most important and influential German artists of the 20th century, and her works profoundly express the artist's interpretation of life and death, sorrow and joy, war and peace, and permeate with strong humanistic feelings.
It is worth mentioning that Kollwitz is Lu Xun's most respected printmaker, as early as the 1930s in China, Kollwitz insisted on using a carving knife to portray a series of works that reflected the low-level figures of society, and had a deep empathy with the Chinese people at that time, which aroused the artistic salvation of a generation of new young people.
To this day, Kollwitz's distinctive knife technique can still be clearly seen in the works of many Chinese printmakers. For a long time, however, Kollwitz's original works were rarely seen.
To the surprise of the audience, this kollwitz exhibition actually exhibited forty-six works, including classic masterpieces such as "Weaver's Uprising", "The Woman Holding a Dead Child", and "Sharpening the Sickle". These works, which cover almost the artist's life's creative experience, fully present the magnificent life of the most influential female artist in Germany in the 20th century.
She rejected Lu Xun, but was more respected by Lu Xun
The name Kollwitz is no stranger to those who paint chinese, and the profound influence of her works in China is directly related to Lu Xun, who first collected her works and introduced Kollwitz to China in 1931.
Tong Ziyun especially liked Lu Xun, and he wanted to let everyone know about this history, so he also did a lot of homework and deliberately placed the relevant documents collected in the first exhibition hall. One of the details impressed him deeply was that after the sacrifice of the "Five Martyrs of the Left League", Lu Xun wrote to Kollwitz and asked her to create a work of martyrdom as a memorial. But Kollwitz replied and refused, saying that she did not know much about the specific situation of the martyrs, although this contact did not promote the work, but Lu Xun therefore recognized Kollwitz more, and later he collected dozens of Kollwitz prints, "There is also a small episode here, at first Lu Xun also bought fake prints, and later after the introduction of American reporters, he knew Kollwitz himself and learned more about it." Tong Ziyun said.
Lu Xun, who was very good at fine arts, was the first to publish Kollwitz's works in the "Beidou" magazine, and also advocated the "emerging woodcut movement", organizing progressive artistic youths to show them Kollwitz's original works and inviting people to come and teach printmaking techniques. Lu Xun believed that China had a tradition of woodcuts, which was very suitable for combining with Kollwitz's prints, so Lu Xun made a series of efforts to promote the art of woodcuts, calling on young people to pick up paintbrushes and knives to publicize the truth of the revolution among the people.
When Tong Ziyun reviewed this history, he found that many artists had talked about Kollwitz's inspiration and influence on him. He pointed to the physical introduction in the display case, "We were fortunate to find a particularly precious album, which is a collection of Kollwitz prints published by Lu Xun at his own expense in 1936. For various reasons, only more than a hundred copies were printed at that time, and only more than seventy copies were circulated on the market. When we got the album, we saw Lu Xun writing on the title page, 'Someone translates, merit is immeasurable'. Tong Ziyun sighed and said, "What is even more interesting is that later the Germans introduced this album to foreign publications, and it is particularly interesting to read the two books together." ”
In addition, Tong Ziyun's team also took great pains to find paintings from contemporary artists, such as prints created by Jiang Feng and Li Qun, "At a glance, the composition is almost exactly the same as kollwitz's." ”
In the middle of the exhibition hall is a poster of Kollwitz's work magnified to six or seven meters high, but the original work next to it is a small one. Many people sighed as soon as they came in, "It is simply incredible that a small painting is magnified to this size and is so clear and powerful." In fact, what surprised Tong Ziyun was that Kollwitz's prints were magnified so many times, "It's still very good, so small and so powerful." ”
In Tong Ziyun's view, to this day, Kollwitz's works are still of great practical significance, "Now many master exhibitions are particularly commercial, very sweet and greasy, showing a certain form of carnival." Kollwitz's works, on the other hand, will make you feel a little uncomfortable and think a little after watching it. I think that whether it is the current situation of the epidemic or the present moment of life, it is good to show you such works in this era. Although kollwitz lived in a time that seems far away from us, her portraits of the people at the bottom can resonate with us today. Because human expressions like this, emotions in human nature, can be seen in our lives. ”
Chinese very little information, and it took more than three months to find literature for the exhibition
Tong Ziyun laughed and said that this curatorial exhibition of Kollwitz's works was completely unexpected. Originally, he focused on painting himself, and when he was still in graduate school at the China Academy of Art in 2011, he came to the Oil Painting Institute to participate in the research group, and after graduation, he stayed in the Oil Painting Institute of the China Academy of Art as a training class teacher, and recently studied for a doctorate. Ma Jun, who provided the exhibit, is an alumnus of Tong Ziyun. He has always collected prints, especially the works of Chagall and Kollwitz. Two years ago, when Tong Ziyun learned that Ma Jun had collected more than forty original works of Kollwitz, he was very surprised, "At first I was worried that there were fakes in them, but later after listening to Ma Jun tell the logic of those paintings and asking the professors of the Printmaking Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts to appreciate them, I had a bottom in my heart." ”
Tong Ziyun said that there are almost no people who study painting in China who are unaware of Kollwitz, and when asked what kind of depth or ideal state their works want to achieve, many people may say "to be as profound as Kollwitz or as deep as Rembrandt." Based on this, Tong Ziyun recommended an exhibition of Kollwitz to the Oil Painting Institute, hoping to let everyone see what this female artist who was regarded as a benchmark, placed in a position with Rembrandt, and could not be bypassed in the history of art was like. What he did not expect was that the dean Yang Feiyun was very supportive of this exhibition and directly asked him to be curatorial.
The first time he made a curatorial exhibition by mistake, Tong Ziyun's intuition was that it was very important to let the niche Kollwitz enter the public eye, and it was very important to introduce the artist's life experience, and it was necessary to be as true and detailed as possible. Although he obtained an exhibition license for more than forty pieces of the collection in October last year, he searched around and found that there were problems with Chinese materials. So he and his friends spent more than three months to collect and find relevant literature and materials to prepare for the exhibition, "such as Kollwitz's resume, the existing information is not complete, I went to the website of the foreign Kollwitz Museum to check, The German version, the English version, the French version, I have translated it, and then checked it again, and there are new discoveries about her family, educational experience, and artistic transformation." In fact, only by understanding this is it more likely to understand her artistic achievements. ”
Kollwitz was born in 1867 in Königsberg, Germany, and is now in the Kaliningrad region of Russia. Tong Ziyun found that it may be the reason for the translation, and many previous Chinese materials described Kollwitz as a poor family origin, "this is unreliable, in fact, Kollwhi is an aristocrat, the family environment is relatively favorable, her maternal grandfather was a theologian, priest, and founded the first liberal evangelical church in Königsberg, Germany." Her father was also a missionary. Kollwitz was deeply influenced by the religious beliefs and socialist ideas of his grandfather and father. It can be said that the initial part of her compassion and compassion for the people at the bottom comes from her faith. ”
When Kollwitz was very young, her father discovered her talent for painting and focused on cultivating her to draw. She entered the Berlin Women's Academy at the age of 19 and was influenced by the copperplate engravings of the famous German printmaker Max Klinger during this period. In 1891, Kollwitz married the doctor Dr. Karl Kollwitz, after which the couple moved to Berlin, "Karl opened a surgical room on Weissenbergstraße in the Prenzlauer berg district as a specialist. Kollwitz lived there for more than 50 years until the summer of 1943. This area is a place where ordinary workers live, and Kollwitz has access to the lives of many low-level people. ”
In order to let everyone see clearly, Tong Ziyun bluntly said that they did not hesitate to break the usual practice of maintaining the simple beauty of the exhibition hall, "Almost every work is written on the exhibition wall, and some are still written for a long time." Usually, as long as there is time, go to the exhibition hall to turn around, Tong Ziyun found that almost everyone who came to see the exhibition will stand in front of the work for a long time, "because the production time is tight, there are also audiences to pick us typos or something." Two days ago, I heard that a heavyweight in the industry came to the exhibition, and almost every painting was evaluated, and he said it very pertinently. ”
Tong Ziyun has an obvious experience, "As long as you are not lazy, a little more diligent, and comb a little finer, you can find a lot of interesting things." We usually only study the most famous artists, but in fact, if we sink a little and look around them, we can immediately find a lot of sources of artistic transformation. For example, at one time, Kollwitz was greatly influenced by the painter Leibermann and began to consciously depict the life of the lower working class. The formation of each master's style has a story. ”
Self-portraits are old and ugly, but they have the power to move naturally
Kollwitz's first complete series, The Weaver's Uprising, completed in 1897, was based on the Revolt of the Textile Workers in Silesia and was influenced by the premiere of the play Textile Workers. The following year' Berlin Art Exhibition, the "Weaver's Uprising" was a great success, and Max Leibermann nominated Kollwitz for the prize, and then won the gold medal at the German Art Exhibition in Dresden. After that, Kollwitz began to compose the group painting "Peasants' War". In 1904, Kollwitz went to Paris for further study, where he studied sculpture at the Julian Academy of Fine Arts and visited Rodin. At that time, all 13 of her works were exhibited in the Paris Independence Salon. Kollwitz then traveled to Italy to study. In 1908, she completed seven copperplate paintings "Peasants' War", which caused a sensation in the German art world. In 1914, Kollwitz's 18-year-old youngest son, Peter, died in World War I. In 1942, her first grandson, Peter, was conscripted into the Army for World War II and was killed in the war. "When I looked up the information, I found that Kollwitz also had twin granddaughters Jodis and Yuta, who were born in 1923, and Yuta lived to be 98 years old and just died in 2021." Tong Ziyun added.
Romain Rolland described Kollwitz as "a feminine spirit with the spirit of a husband". In 1918, on the recommendation of Menzel, Kollwitz was elected the first female member of the Prussian Academy of Arts. At the same time, inspired by the woodcuts of Ernst Barach, she began to study woodblock printmaking techniques and created in memory of Karl Liebknecht.
In 1925, Kollwitz met the American writer Smedley in Berlin, and Smedley later became kollwitz's intermediary in establishing contact with Lu Xun.
On the occasion of Kollwitz's 60th birthday, he received numerous honors and many exhibitions. Among the more than 500 congratulatory letters and telegrams on her birthday were congratulations from the German Interior Minister, the Minister of Culture, the Mayor of Berlin and others. She was also invited to participate in the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution in Moscow and the World Congress of Friends of the Usser in Moscow. Inspired by the socialist construction of the Soviet Union, after returning to China, she created lithographs such as "Demonstrations", "Unity is Strength", "Mother and Son" and other works.
In 1928, Kollwitz taught at the Berlin Academy of Arts, becoming the first female professor in German art education. The following year, she became the first woman to receive the Medal of Science and the Arts.
Unfortunately, Kollwitz was later persecuted by fascism and forced to leave the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts and was dismissed from his position as director of the printmaking department of the "Master's Studio". Subsequently, her husband also lost his doctor's license.
In 1943, Kollwitz left Berlin, where she had worked and lived for 52 years, as a result of air raids, and her apartment in Berlin, along with many of her works, was blown up in the air raids that followed.
Kollwitz died at the age of 78 in Moritzburg near Dresden and was buried in Moritzburg and later in the Friedrichsfeld Central Cemetery in Lichtenberg, Berlin.
It is worth mentioning that Kollwitz has preserved many photos during her lifetime, especially when she was 39 years old, she took a series of portrait photos, which are very beautiful. But looking at her self-portrait, she is always very sad. Her mother once asked her, why do you always paint yourself old and ugly? Kollwitz said, "I am like this, emotions that arise naturally. And many people are indeed deeply moved by her self-portrait.
She took me through despair and lit the dawn for me
Many of the people who came to see the exhibition were people who studied painting. A student named Wanyi said that she knew Kollwitz when she first came into contact with sketching, "Kollwitz uses cold and hard lines as sharp as thorns, as if the strength of each stroke carved with a steel needle, which is the same as the sound and the power to be displayed by her picture, which is exciting." Although she lived through two world wars and lived in a world full of unbearable and mottled, we can still see the light in her voice and her strength. In her view, the pain of life and death, the despair brought by oppression and war, is the intuitive feeling brought by Kollwitz, "Her paintings are unabashed, in her pen, the collision of black and white and love and hate become so jumpy, she extracts and expresses the purest side of everything in the world and human emotions, which is why her paintings can resonate with us." The emotions of the Kellerhui tributary are brutal and delicate, because she first for a strong and great human being, and then for a secular mother, while shouting for the liberation of all mankind, she also makes us feel the most mediocre and true feelings as human beings. If she stays in front of each painting long enough, she can figure out the hope she holds tightly in her hands. ”
In Kollwitz's pen, the black earth is finally pregnant with golden hope, "Her paintings take me across the centuries to experience the despair of the society and war of that hundred years ago." She also turned all black emotions into fuel, igniting the fireworks of the dawn in people's hearts. Such a strong feeling was not only transmitted to the people at that time, but also made us in the next life can't help but stop and reminisce, reflect and meditate. ”
Tong Ziyun said that when setting up the exhibition, he consciously followed the logical relationship of the state of creation, and determined the order of works according to the time of the event. When many people watch the exhibition, they will slowly look for the stories between the lines, stand for a long time, and hold up their mobile phones from time to time to take pictures.
Even if the weather is cold, there are still many people in the exhibition hall, mostly young people. Tong Ziyun said bluntly that it is reasonable to say that the generation of about fifty years old is more familiar with Kollwitz, but when he actually held the exhibition, he and his friends felt happy when they saw so many young people. One day, Tong Ziyun saw two girls in the exhibition hall that it was almost time to close the door and was still reluctant to look at it, he took the initiative to ask a question to know that they were learning printmaking, and a girl sighed: "I saw her original for the first time!" Just watched "Charge", tears almost fell. ”
Ma Jun, the borrower, was also particularly happy to see that so many young people liked the master Kollwitz, and took the initiative to say that he would not borrow the cost of the exhibition. Although this exhibition may be quite difficult to recover the cost, I still feel that this matter is worth it! Tong Ziyun said with emotion.
Text/Reporter Li Zhe Courtesy photo/Tong Ziyun Studio