Modern Art from Germany

A third lecture from the educational cycle Shape and Meaning, The German Contribution to the Visual Arts was delivered at the Post-Graduate Government College of Women in Rawalpindi today.
The lecture took place after a warm welcoming that included several bunches of flowers. Prof. Mamoona from the Fine Arts Department and Dr. Ditt from the German embassy opened the event with important remarks about the nature and importance of the present series of conferences that aims to refresh the local area by broadening the public's awareness of art as a means of education.



Event brochure

Architect and historian Mariano Akerman introduced the audience to German Modern Art. He talked about similiarities and differences between traditional art and modern art. Talking to a group of 180 students and teachers he dealt with the visual imagery of Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer to explore afterwards the idea of freedom in the work of more than twenty German Modern Artists such as Philipp Otto Runge, Caspar David Friedrich, Karl Eduard Biermann, Max Liebermann, Lesser Ury, Max Laueger, Ephraim Moses Lilien, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Ludwig Meidner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Max Beckmann, Franz Marc, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Kurt Schwitters, Meret Oppenheim, Max Ernst, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Karl Schwesig, John Heartfield [Helmut Herzfeld], Käthe Kollwitz, Hans Hartung, and Anselm Kiefer.

Karl Edouard Biermann, Borsig Engineering Work in Berlin (Borsig's Maschinenbau-Anstalt zu Berlin), oil, 1847. Stadtmuseum Berlin

The subject matter of the lecture is not particularly easy to communicate but most of the participants seem to have enjoyed the lecture. Some unexpected lack of electricity did not prevent Akerman to keep on talking about the difficulties of being an artist in Germany before, during and after the two world wars.

John Heartfield, And Yet It Moves, photomontage, 1943


Käthe Kollwitz, Seed corn must not be ground, 1942


Andreas Paul Weber, March into the Grave, 1932

As a matter of fact the sudden lack of electricity became then a wonderful opportunity to explore four quotations of words writen respectively by Goethe, Oppenheim, Fenton, and Paul Celan, and which are included in the brochures received by all participants:


I belong to those who from darkness to light aspire. Goethe.[1]


Nobody will give you freedom. You have to take it. Meret Oppenheim.[2]


It is not what they built. It is what they knocked down.
It is not the houses. It is the space between the houses.
It is not the streets that exist. It is the streets that no longer exist. [...] It is not what you have forgotten, what you must forget.
What you must go on forgetting all your life.
[...] The workers are dismantling the houses of the dead. [...]
It is not what he wants to know.
It is what he wants not to know.
It is not what they say.
It is what they do not say.
James Fenton, A German Requiem, 1981.[3]


Black milk of dawn we drink it at sunset we drink it at noon and in the morning we drink it at night / we drink and we drink it [...] / Your golden hair Margarete / Your ashen hair Shulamith.
Paul Celan, Todesfuge (Death Fugue), 1947-48.[4]

Captions to images: 1. Philipp Otto Runge, Self-Portrait, 1810; 2. Franz Marc, Deer in Flower Garden, oil, 1913; 3. Abstract painting by Hans Hartung; 4. Anselm Kiefer, Margarete (Dein goldenes Haar, Margarethe), mixed media, 1981.

Mariano Akerman, Black Milk, watercolor, 2001-3

Remarks by Prof. Aalia Sohail Khan: "I congratulate you for delivering a lecture on a very serious theme in a very lively and interesting manner. The same topic could have been approached in many other ways, but the way you synthesised the subject matter with earnestness and message made all the difference. History is not just a record of events, and your lecture brought out the determining, shaping power of events on painting which is not just dabbing in colour. You speak with conviction and earnestness; this is the vital element in your personality as a speaker, because the energy is transferred and holds the attention of the listeners. To cover so much in so little time is another remarkable feat. The use of slides illustrated the theme and made ideas more clear."

Akerman, Gold and Ashes, ink and watercolor, 2001

The words of Naima Muzaffar: "The lecture was highly educative. It revealed artistic sensitivity from part of the lecturer, who helped us to understand how German art evolved into what it is today. The presentation made me feel empathy towards the pain of the German nation as it suffered in the hands of a tyrant. Concepts were explained clearly. As he delivered the lecture, Mr. Akerman's style was above all moving."


Shape and Meaning: The German Contribution to the Visual Arts - Five Educational Lectures by Mariano Akerman, German Embassy Islamabad, 3.1.2011, Education & Culture


Deutsche Kunst - Form und Bedeutung. Eine Vorlesungsreihe von Mariano Akerman, Botschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Islamabad, 3.1.2011, Kulturelle Beziehungen (Andreas Dauth).

Selected masterpieces at the German Art Gallery