“Modern Visionaries” at Berlinische Galerie presents the works of three German artists, whose sketches, architectural designs and drawings mix inspirations and styles. Paul Scheerbart, Bruno Taut and Paul Goesch exchanged ideas about ideal art and reinforced each other’s visions of architecture.The period between the end of First World War and the dissolution of the Weimar Republic in Germany was especially ripe for radical, visionary ideas such as theirs. The art of German Expressionists sought inspiration in folk traditions, the art of indigenous peoples and spiritually charged art of the previous centuries.Because of his fragile mental state, Goesch was frequently hospitalized in psychiatric institutions. His works, such as “Madonna” (1922, gouache and opaque white over pencil on paper), reveal his interest in modern mysticism. The artist renders traditional medieval subject grotesquely cartoonish, with bright colors and thin black lines describing the subject matter.While Goesch’s art veers into the area of religious vision, the other two artists remained focused on the architecture and its role in shaping the modern society. In 1914, Scheerbart published a treatise called “Glass Architecture” and dedicated it to Taut. In the same year, Taut put those ideas into practice and erected “Glass Pavilion” at the Cologne Werkbund Exhibition. The photograph of that building presented at the exhibition does not give justice to the importance that color had in Taut’s architectural scheme. The pavilion, with the dome in the shape of a crystal, presents a compromise between daring modernist architectural form and the decorative quality of colored glass.The fascination with primary colors is the element which unifies the works of Goesch, Scheerbart and Taut. While indebted to the modernist currents of the time, the three artists remain faithful to their own vision.“Modern Visionaries: Paul Scheerbart, Bruno Taut, Paul Goesch“ runs at Berlinische Galerie, Alte Jakobstraße 124–128, 10969 Berlin from April 15 until October 31, 2016. For more information, see http://www.berlinischegalerie.de/
↧