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Alfred Lichtwark and the Founding of the German Art Education Movement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Sterling Fishman
Sterling Fishman*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin
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Extract

We find ourselves at present in Germany, in a time which we might well compare with that of a deforested woodland. The hills are barren and will not be reforested without great effort, and as long as they are not newly constituted, they will remain fallow. What our next generation must do is a kind of reforesting of the land of our artistic culture that is lying fallow. It demands a great deal of effort, a great deal of care, and a great deal of work, which has at present hardly begun, but which must be achieved and to which we must devote all our energies. For the rejuvenation of the artistic education of our people is in moral, political, and economic respects one of the great life-questions of our time.

Alfred Lichtwark

When Alfred Lichtwark arrived in Hamburg in the fall of 1886, he came fully determined to launch a cultural renaissance that would engulf all of Imperial Germany. As his chief weapons, Lichtwark would employ his compelling personality and his newly acquired position as Director of the Hamburg Art Museum (Kunsthalle). His grandiose aim was to create a new German culture radiating from the Hamburg Art Museum to all parts of the country. His first speeches, which he delivered to groups of prominent Hamburg citizens in the following months, reveal clearly that his ideas were fully formed at the outset of his venture. To the execution of these ideas, he had decided to devote his life's work.

Type
Research Article
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , Fall 1966 , pp. 3 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © 1966 by New York University 

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References

Notes

1. There are two biographies of Lichtwark: Gebhard, Julius, Alfred Lichtwark und die Kunsterziehungsbewegung in Hamburg (Hamburg, 1947); and von Zeromski, Anna, Alfred Lichtwark, Ein Führer zur deutschen Zukunft (Jena 1924). Gebhard's book is more thorough and critical while von Zeromski's is more laudatory and readable.Google Scholar

2. Quoted in the eulogy to Lichtwark delivered by Erich Marcks on March 13, 1914. Marcks, Erick, Alfred Lichtwark und sein Lebenswerk (Leipzig, 1914), p. 14.Google Scholar

3. Lichtwark, Alfred, “Justus Brinckmann—Der Typus,” Das Bild des Deutschen (Langensalza, 1931), pp. 65–66.Google Scholar

4. See Lichtwark's, essays, “Rembrandt und die holländische Kunst,” and “Albrecht Dürer: Das Leben der Jungfrau Maria,” Alfred Lichtwark: Eine Auswahl seiner Schriften , II (Berlin, 1917), 261–78.Google Scholar

5. Lichtwark, , “Justus Brinckmann—Der Typus,” op. cit. , p. 66.Google Scholar

6. Gebhard, , op. cit. , pp. 35–40.Google Scholar

7. Marie Antoinette's alleged remark, “Let them eat cake,” indicated a similar insight into the problems of Frenchmen in 1789, one of taste.Google Scholar

8. Nicolson, Harold, Good Behavior (Boston, 1960), p. 218.Google Scholar

9. Zeromski, Von, op. cit. , pp. 110–19.Google Scholar

10. Marcks, , op. cit. , pp. 23–24.Google Scholar

11. Lichtwark, Alfred, “Die Kunst in der Schule,” Alfred Lichtwark: Eine Auswahl seiner Schriften , I (Berlin, 1917), 31.Google Scholar

12. Ibid. , p. 32.Google Scholar

13. Ibid. , p. 36.Google Scholar

14. Ibid. , p. 32.Google Scholar

15. Quoted in Gebhard, , op. cit. , pp. 44–45.Google Scholar

16. Lichtwark, Alfred, “Das Aufleben des Dilettantismus,” Das Bild des Deutschen (Weinheim, 1962), p. 40.Google Scholar

17. Lichtwark, , “Die Kunst in der Schule,” op. at. , p. 34.Google Scholar

18. Quoted in Gebhard, , op. cit. , p. 20.Google Scholar

19. Quoted in Marcks, , op. cit. , p. 20.Google Scholar

20. Lichtwark, , “Die Kunst in der Schule,” op. cit. , p. 37.Google Scholar

21. Ibid. , p. 48.Google Scholar

22. Ibid. Google Scholar

23. Spanier, Meier, Künstlerischer Bilderschmuck für Schulen (3d ed.; Leipzig, 1902).Google Scholar

24. Wolgast, Heinrich, Das Elend unserer Jugendliterature, Ein Beitrag zur künstlerischen Erziehung der Jugend (16th ed.; Leipzig, 1922).Google Scholar

25. Götze, Carl, Das Kind als Künstler (Hamburg, 1898).Google Scholar

26. For a collection of the more notable speeches, see Kunsterziehung: Ergebnisse und Anregungen der Kunsterziehungstage in Dresden, Weimar und Hamburg (Leipzig, 1921). Full transcripts for each of the meetings were also published.Google Scholar