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The woodcut is the archetypal Expressionist medium - vital, energetic, powerful. One thinks of artists such as Erich Heckel, Frans Masereel, Emil Nolde, Max Beckman. Certainly since the 1870s and the rise of Impressionism, art movements have come and gone with incredible speed. It is interesting to see how quickly the Jugendstil (German art nouveau) colour woodcuts, that make such an interesting western comment on the Japanese woodcut tradition, become overwhelmed by the new Expressionist mode - a jagged, rough-edged, almost brutal aesthetic, which nevertheless proves able to accommodate motifs as traditional as deer grazing in a landscape. All of the images in this post are taken from issues of the Viennese art revue Die Graphischen K�nste. The first comes from 1910, and is I think an exceptional example of a Jugendstil woodcut. It's an incredibly strong yet subtle image, and for once I think my photograph does it justice. Heine Rath (German, 1873-1920), Eisblumen Woodcut, 1910 Le

The Leipzig painter and printmaker Ernst Klotz was born in 1863. He studied under Franz von Defregger in Munich and Carl Frithjof Smith in Weimar. In 1895-1896 Klotz experimented with coloured etchings printed from one plate � la poup�e, which he exhibited with the Munich Secession and in Vienna. Ernst Klotz was a remarkably accomplished etcher, as the three etchings in this post, all published in 1895 in the art revues Pan and Zeitschrift f�r Bildende Kunst, show. Ernst Klotz, Zigeunerknabe Etching, 1895 Ernst Klotz, M�dchenkopf Etching, 1895 Ernst Klotz, Zwei Studienk�pfe Etching, 1895 Like many Jugendstil artists, Ernst Klotz made no firm distinction between art and craft. He made designs for metalwork, furniture, and interiors, but his chief interest was in printmaking and graphic techniques. In the 1890s Ernst Klotz developed a new method of printmaking, in which the image is painted onto a metal plate, and engraved directly from this original artwork. He called this planographic

The exhibition Vormen van de kleur at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 20.11.1966-15.1.1967 was curated by W. A. L. Beeren. The exhibition title was given in English as New Shapes of Color. The work of 37 artists representing the Hard-edge abstract movement was shown, including Josef Albers, Max Bill, Victor Vasarely, Alexander Liberman, Barnett Newman, Frank Stella, Robyn Denny, Robert Indiana, and Donald Judd. Four artists - Kelly, Bonies, Pfahler, and Turnbull - contributed original screenprints (serigraphs) to the catalogue, which was printed in an edition of 2200 copies. My copy of this delightful work has one further interest, in that it comes from the library of the American artists Ben Shahn and Bernarda Bryson Shahn. The ownership stamp of Ben Shahn and Bernarda Bryson Shahn Ellsworth Kelly has long been a hero of mine, and I like the deceptive simplicity of this print. Apparently this was the second screenprint he made, and I'm sorry my wonky photograph doesn't do it

Because this post is a round-up of disparate artists and styles, I'm not going to give more details about the artists than their dates of birth and death. Instead I want to concentrate on the varied ways in which they have tried to express the individual humanity of their subjects. As in my previous post on German landscape, all the examples are taken from the Leipzig art revue Zeitschrift f�r Bildende Kunst. Although all are portraits, only one, the self-portrait of Hans Thoma, identifies its subject. The rest are presented as anonymous representative types, though often with a very powerful individual essence.  Robert Raudner (1854-1910) Kopf eines alten Mannes Etching, 1892 A traditional approach for a traditional subject, in this strong depiction of a man who has known a life of hard work, and perhaps some disappointment. Josef Damberger (1867-1951) Am h�uslichen Herd Etching, 1894 This strongly-composed etching by Josef Damberger intrigues me. You get a real sense of family re

I've recently acquired a run of the Leipzig art revue Zeitschrift f�r Bildende Kunst from its founding in 1866 through to 1901. Especially in the 1890s, when the emphasis switches from interpretative etchings to original works, it provides a good overview of the German art of the day. There isn't the revolutionary zeal of a journal such as Pan, but that gives the more cutting edge art a more clearly defined context - we can see both where it came from and where it's headed. The four landscapes in this post were all published in Zeitschrift f�r Bildende Kunst, Neue Folge IX, 1898. They treat similar motifs in the same medium, but vary dramatically in feel. They work steadily through from a fairly conventional realism, to Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and finally to Expressionism. I admire all four prints, but particularly like Else Ruest's conventional but tenderly-observed landscape and Walter Leistikow's darkly brooding inscape. The two could hardly be more di

With his blockbuster exhibition at the Royal Academy, A Bigger Picture, David Hockney has achieved the almost impossible. He has got the British public excited about art. I don't mean the people who usually go to exhibitions and buy art books, I mean people who normally wouldn't have any interest in an exhibition, or any opinion save, "A child of two could do it." Having an aversion to crowds, I haven't seen the show, only the catalogue. Friends who have seen it have divided sharply into two - those who are exhilarated by the vibrant colour, the ambition, and the artist's responsiveness to the landscape and seasons of his native Yorkshire, and those who find the whole thing shallow and glib. The iPad drawings have come in for particular scorn, while the charcoal drawings seem to have pleased everyone. The iPad and iPhone drawings reproduce well, but it may be that the lack of surface, and that vital sense of the craftsman's hand, is disappointing in a gall

I really love this etching by the almost forgotten German Symbolist Alexander Frenz. Frenz seems to have drawn much of his inspiration from myth and fairytale, as in this mysterious scene in which a hooded man summons a tree nymph out of the stump of a blasted tree, with music he is playing on an antique stringed instrument. The etching was first published in Originalradirungen des K�nstlerklubs St. Lucas, D�sseldorf, Heft 1 (c.1893). This copy as published by E. A. Seemann, Leipzig, for Zeitschrift f�r Bildende Kunst, N. F. IV, 1893. Alexander Frenz, Idylle Etching with aquatint, 1893 Alexander Frenz was born in Rheydt in 1861. Frenz studied at the D�sseldorf Kunstakademie and Malerschule, and in the atelier of Franz von Lenbach. Like many German artists of his day, Alexander Frenz was profoundly influenced by the Symbolist art of Franz von Stuck. He died in D�sseldorf in 1941.