Friedrich Nietzsche and the Artists of the New Weimar

Sebastian Schütze

F R IE DRICH NIE T Z S CHE AND THE ARTISTS OF THE NEW WEIMAR

F RIE DRICH NIE T Z S CHE AND THE ARTISTS OF THE NEW WEIMAR

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27/02/19 15:03

Published in conjunction with the exhibition Friedrich Nietzsche and the Artists of the New Weimar organized by the National Gallery of Canada and presented in Ottawa from 18 April to 25 August 2019.

Published by 5 Continents Editions, Milan, in collaboration with the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

National Gallery of Canada Chief, Publications and Copyright: Ivan Parisien Editor: Lauren Walker Picture Editor: Andrea Fajrajsl Production Manager: Anne Tessier National Gallery of Canada P.O. Box 427, Station A 380 Sussex Drive Ottawa, Ontario K1N 9N4 Canada National Gallery of Canada Boutique shopNGC.ca Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada. https://bac-lac.on.worldcat.org/discovery

All rights reserved – National Gallery of Canada, 2019 © For texts and illustrations National Gallery of Canada, 2019 © For the present edition 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2019

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright).

For a copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free 1-800-893-5777.

Typeset in Fedra Serif B Pro and Fedra Sans Pro Printed in Italy on GardaMatt paper on the presses of Tecnostampa – Pigini Group Printing Division Loreto – Trevi, on behalf of 5 Continents Editions, Milan, March 2019 Also published in French under the title: Friedrich Nietzsche et les artistes du Nouveau Weimar

Copyright notices: © Estate of Henry Van de Velde / SOCAN (2019): figs. 9, 11–13, 15–18; cats. 7, 11, 12, 13 Reproduced with permission of the artist: fig. 38

Table of Content s

Foreword ...................................................................... 7

Acknowledgements ...................................................... 9

“It is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified.”: Friedrich Nietzsche and the Artists of the New Weimar Sebastian Schütze .............................................................. 11

ISBN 978-88-7439-854-6 Photo credits: Images were provided by the owners or custodians of the works reproduced, unless otherwise noted.

5 Continents Editions Editorial Coordination: Laura Maggioni Art Direction: Annarita De Sanctis Colour Separation: Pixel Studio, Italy Legal deposit: March 2019 5 Continents Editions Piazza Caiazzo, 1 20124 Milan, Italy www.fivecontinentseditions.com Cover: Max Klinger, Bust of Friedrich Nietzsche, c. 1904 (detail, cat. 25) Distributed by ACC Art Books throughout the world, excluding Italy.

Distributed in Italy and Switzerland by Messaggerie Libri S.p.A.

Foto Marburg / Art Resource, NY: figs. 5, 6 Photograph © The State Hermitage Museum.

Photo by Alexander Lavrentyev: fig. 24 Scala / Art Resource: fig. 27 Photo Thielska Galleriet / Tord Lund: fig. 29 bpk Bildagentur / Nationalgalerie, Berlin / Jörg P. Anders / Art Resource, NY: fig. 30 HIP / Art Resource, NY: fig. 34 Imaging Department © President and Fellows of Harvard College: cats. 5, 6, 21, 29 Nationalgalerie, Berlin / Photo Klaus Gökin: cat. 15

New World Nietzsche: A History of Becoming Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen ................................................... 39

Catalogue .................................................................... 50

Bibliography .............................................................. 115

Published in conjunction with the exhibition Friedrich Nietzsche and the Artists of the New Weimar organized by the National Gallery of Canada and presented in Ottawa from 18 April to 25 August 2019.

Published by 5 Continents Editions, Milan, in collaboration with the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

National Gallery of Canada Chief, Publications and Copyright: Ivan Parisien Editor: Lauren Walker Picture Editor: Andrea Fajrajsl Production Manager: Anne Tessier National Gallery of Canada P.O. Box 427, Station A 380 Sussex Drive Ottawa, Ontario K1N 9N4 Canada National Gallery of Canada Boutique shopNGC.ca Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada. https://bac-lac.on.worldcat.org/discovery

All rights reserved – National Gallery of Canada, 2019 © For texts and illustrations National Gallery of Canada, 2019 © For the present edition 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2019

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright).

For a copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free 1-800-893-5777.

Typeset in Fedra Serif B Pro and Fedra Sans Pro Printed in Italy on GardaMatt paper on the presses of Tecnostampa – Pigini Group Printing Division Loreto – Trevi, on behalf of 5 Continents Editions, Milan, March 2019 Also published in French under the title: Friedrich Nietzsche et les artistes du Nouveau Weimar

Copyright notices: © Estate of Henry Van de Velde / SOCAN (2019): figs. 9, 11–13, 15–18; cats. 7, 11, 12, 13 Reproduced with permission of the artist: fig. 38

Table of Content s

Foreword ...................................................................... 7

Acknowledgements ...................................................... 9

“It is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified.”: Friedrich Nietzsche and the Artists of the New Weimar Sebastian Schütze .............................................................. 11

ISBN 978-88-7439-854-6 Photo credits: Images were provided by the owners or custodians of the works reproduced, unless otherwise noted.

5 Continents Editions Editorial Coordination: Laura Maggioni Art Direction: Annarita De Sanctis Colour Separation: Pixel Studio, Italy Legal deposit: March 2019 5 Continents Editions Piazza Caiazzo, 1 20124 Milan, Italy www.fivecontinentseditions.com Cover: Max Klinger, Bust of Friedrich Nietzsche, c. 1904 (detail, cat. 25) Distributed by ACC Art Books throughout the world, excluding Italy.

Distributed in Italy and Switzerland by Messaggerie Libri S.p.A.

Foto Marburg / Art Resource, NY: figs. 5, 6 Photograph © The State Hermitage Museum.

Photo by Alexander Lavrentyev: fig. 24 Scala / Art Resource: fig. 27 Photo Thielska Galleriet / Tord Lund: fig. 29 bpk Bildagentur / Nationalgalerie, Berlin / Jörg P. Anders / Art Resource, NY: fig. 30 HIP / Art Resource, NY: fig. 34 Imaging Department © President and Fellows of Harvard College: cats. 5, 6, 21, 29 Nationalgalerie, Berlin / Photo Klaus Gökin: cat. 15

New World Nietzsche: A History of Becoming Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen ................................................... 39

Catalogue .................................................................... 50

Bibliography .............................................................. 115

Foreword

Friedrich Nietzsche was the philosopher of modernism. His writings gave a great many artists active at the turn of the last century – from art to theatre and music – permission to be modern. In fact, it might be better to switch out the word “permission” for “responsibility,” although Nietzsche was not one for giving orders.

His notion of the Übermensch – a gender-neutral German word that has no precise cognate in English but is usually, and misleadingly, translated as either “superman” or “overman,” – could function as a synonym for the modern person. By modern, I mean a spiritually autonomous and avid earthling, awake, aware and disinhibited, fully emancipated from ancient superstitious enchantments, a fully realized person who relishes life and nature; in short, mankind “overcome,” to put it in Neitzschean terms.

It certainly did not hurt his reputation with artists to have said “art is the supreme task, the truly metaphysical activity in this life,” upping the ante from Schopenhauer’s tamer notion of artistic “consolation.”

Nietzsche was also the ideal philosopher for early modern artists because he was at once recondite and strident, richly, indeed reflectingly allusive (in the original German at any rate) as well as entertaining. He did not tell artists how to be modern, only that they must be, because the old world and the old beliefs had disintegrated, putting the project of civilization in grave danger. And he was cataclysmically prescient about that.

Nietzsche’s Übermensch must have seemed like an exhilarating programme to artists at the dawn of a new century, but in a few years it would be tainted by fascists who harnessed his ideas to their programme of ignorance and horror. This exhibition is about the moment before that disaster, when Nietzsche was not yet dangerous. It was conceived and organized by Sebastian Schütze, Professor of Art History, University of Vienna. We are grateful to him for having approached the National Gallery of Canada with his project, and for giving us an opportunity to situate our famous portrait bust of Nietzsche by Max Klinger in its own time and cultural context.

Sebastian Schütze’s exhibition and his comprehensive essay focuses on Count Harry Kessler’s work as a Nietzschean impresario from 1895 when he fi rst met the philosopher’s sister, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, through the strategic establishment in Weimar of the Nietzsche Archiv in 1897, and Kessler’s appointment in 1902 as Director of the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe (present-day Stadtmuseum Weimar). At the end of 1903, and under the patronage of the young and ambitious Grand Duke Wilhelm Ernst von Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach who was modernizing his capital, Kessler established the Deutsche Künstlerbund, a national association of avant-garde artists headquartered in the “New Weimar.” Kessler was extraordinarily productive with his own ambitions to make Weimar a centre of vanguard culture in Germany that could rival Berlin. But by July of 1906, his Weimar adventure was over. He resigned his position and returned to

7

Foreword

Friedrich Nietzsche was the philosopher of modernism. His writings gave a great many artists active at the turn of the last century – from art to theatre and music – permission to be modern. In fact, it might be better to switch out the word “permission” for “responsibility,” although Nietzsche was not one for giving orders.

His notion of the Übermensch – a gender-neutral German word that has no precise cognate in English but is usually, and misleadingly, translated as either “superman” or “overman,” – could function as a synonym for the modern person. By modern, I mean a spiritually autonomous and avid earthling, awake, aware and disinhibited, fully emancipated from ancient superstitious enchantments, a fully realized person who relishes life and nature; in short, mankind “overcome,” to put it in Neitzschean terms.

It certainly did not hurt his reputation with artists to have said “art is the supreme task, the truly metaphysical activity in this life,” upping the ante from Schopenhauer’s tamer notion of artistic “consolation.”

Nietzsche was also the ideal philosopher for early modern artists because he was at once recondite and strident, richly, indeed reflectingly allusive (in the original German at any rate) as well as entertaining. He did not tell artists how to be modern, only that they must be, because the old world and the old beliefs had disintegrated, putting the project of civilization in grave danger. And he was cataclysmically prescient about that.

Nietzsche’s Übermensch must have seemed like an exhilarating programme to artists at the dawn of a new century, but in a few years it would be tainted by fascists who harnessed his ideas to their programme of ignorance and horror. This exhibition is about the moment before that disaster, when Nietzsche was not yet dangerous. It was conceived and organized by Sebastian Schütze, Professor of Art History, University of Vienna. We are grateful to him for having approached the National Gallery of Canada with his project, and for giving us an opportunity to situate our famous portrait bust of Nietzsche by Max Klinger in its own time and cultural context.

Sebastian Schütze’s exhibition and his comprehensive essay focuses on Count Harry Kessler’s work as a Nietzschean impresario from 1895 when he fi rst met the philosopher’s sister, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, through the strategic establishment in Weimar of the Nietzsche Archiv in 1897, and Kessler’s appointment in 1902 as Director of the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe (present-day Stadtmuseum Weimar). At the end of 1903, and under the patronage of the young and ambitious Grand Duke Wilhelm Ernst von Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach who was modernizing his capital, Kessler established the Deutsche Künstlerbund, a national association of avant-garde artists headquartered in the “New Weimar.” Kessler was extraordinarily productive with his own ambitions to make Weimar a centre of vanguard culture in Germany that could rival Berlin. But by July of 1906, his Weimar adventure was over. He resigned his position and returned to

7

Berlin having fallen foul of conservative elements at the court of a capricious and impressionable young ruler.

We are pleased to be able to include an essay by Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen and to benefit from her recent scholarship concerning Nietzsche’s influence on Americans, almost simultaneously with his briskly expanding notoriety in Europe. More surprisingly for many, she explores American influence on the philosopher himself, a man who never left his home continent. It is particularly interesting to note Nietzsche’s lifelong devotion to the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, his senior by forty years, and the strong intellectual affinities between both thinkers. It is always helpful to learn that the great influential figures of the past whom we admire as sibyls of a forthcoming zeitgeist, are less sui generis, less intellectually isolated and less purely original than we may have thought. The big ideas that have formed our world usually have much longer gestations than we presume and also wider spheres of influence.

For a fleeting moment at the dawn of the last century, Weimar was a place where permission to be modern seemed sanctioned not only by a philosopher, but also by the state. Harry Kessler was well on his way to putting Weimar on the map of the world’s aesthetically advanced centres, shortly after helping to establish it as a pilgrimage site for the many Nietzschean artists of the era who could give it that status. It was a place where, briefly, beauty felt new.

Marc Mayer Director and Chief Executive Officer National Gallery of Canada

Acknowledgements To realize an ambitious project such as Friedrich Nietzsche and the Artists of the New Weimar, the generous support of many is needed. It is a pleasurable duty here to thank friends and colleagues who have helped to bring it all together.

At the National Gallery of Canada, I would first like to thank Marc Mayer, Director and CEO, Anne Eschapasse, Deputy Director, and Paul Lang, former Chief Curator for their very personal interest in the exhibition, and the members of the Gallery’s exhibition committee for inviting me to curate it. Christopher Regimbal managed our loan requests with great commitment and diplomacy, Caroline Côté adeptly coordinated the transfer of the works, and Marie Ohlinger provided curatorial support. Lauren Walker edited the catalogue with exceptional care, while Andrea Fajrajsl looked after the complex picture research. Thanks also to David Bosschaart for the elegant exhibition design and to the Gallery’s technical teams for a flawless installation. It was a great pleasure to work once again with the entire National Gallery team.

During my extended research trips, Jeannette Stoschek at the Museum der bildenden Künste in Leipzig and Thorsten Valk at the Klassik Stiftung in Weimar, as well as Inger Engan, Ute Kuhlemann Falck, Charlotte B. Lafond and Jon-Ove Steihaug at the Munch Museum in Oslo were particularly generous with their time. At Vienna University I would like to thank my research assistants, Anna Frasca-Rath and Gernot Mayer, for their continuous help in securing the most demanding bibliographical requests.

Sebastian Schütze Professor of Art History University of Vienna

8

9

Berlin having fallen foul of conservative elements at the court of a capricious and impressionable young ruler.

We are pleased to be able to include an essay by Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen and to benefit from her recent scholarship concerning Nietzsche’s influence on Americans, almost simultaneously with his briskly expanding notoriety in Europe. More surprisingly for many, she explores American influence on the philosopher himself, a man who never left his home continent. It is particularly interesting to note Nietzsche’s lifelong devotion to the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, his senior by forty years, and the strong intellectual affinities between both thinkers. It is always helpful to learn that the great influential figures of the past whom we admire as sibyls of a forthcoming zeitgeist, are less sui generis, less intellectually isolated and less purely original than we may have thought. The big ideas that have formed our world usually have much longer gestations than we presume and also wider spheres of influence.

For a fleeting moment at the dawn of the last century, Weimar was a place where permission to be modern seemed sanctioned not only by a philosopher, but also by the state. Harry Kessler was well on his way to putting Weimar on the map of the world’s aesthetically advanced centres, shortly after helping to establish it as a pilgrimage site for the many Nietzschean artists of the era who could give it that status. It was a place where, briefly, beauty felt new.

Marc Mayer Director and Chief Executive Officer National Gallery of Canada

Acknowledgements To realize an ambitious project such as Friedrich Nietzsche and the Artists of the New Weimar, the generous support of many is needed. It is a pleasurable duty here to thank friends and colleagues who have helped to bring it all together.

At the National Gallery of Canada, I would first like to thank Marc Mayer, Director and CEO, Anne Eschapasse, Deputy Director, and Paul Lang, former Chief Curator for their very personal interest in the exhibition, and the members of the Gallery’s exhibition committee for inviting me to curate it. Christopher Regimbal managed our loan requests with great commitment and diplomacy, Caroline Côté adeptly coordinated the transfer of the works, and Marie Ohlinger provided curatorial support. Lauren Walker edited the catalogue with exceptional care, while Andrea Fajrajsl looked after the complex picture research. Thanks also to David Bosschaart for the elegant exhibition design and to the Gallery’s technical teams for a flawless installation. It was a great pleasure to work once again with the entire National Gallery team.

During my extended research trips, Jeannette Stoschek at the Museum der bildenden Künste in Leipzig and Thorsten Valk at the Klassik Stiftung in Weimar, as well as Inger Engan, Ute Kuhlemann Falck, Charlotte B. Lafond and Jon-Ove Steihaug at the Munch Museum in Oslo were particularly generous with their time. At Vienna University I would like to thank my research assistants, Anna Frasca-Rath and Gernot Mayer, for their continuous help in securing the most demanding bibliographical requests.

Sebastian Schütze Professor of Art History University of Vienna

8

9

facilitated the arrival of like-minded artists, and in 1903 Ludwig von Hofmann joined the Kunstschule as professor.14 In 1904 Olde tried, unsuccessfully, to lure Gustav Klimt away from Vienna. Finally, on the recommendation of Max Klinger, he hired the young Sascha Schneider, known today mainly as the illustrator of Karl May’s popular western novels featuring the characters Winnetou and Old Shatterhand. Von Hofmann, who was trained in Dresden and Karlsruhe and a major representative of Symbolism and Jugendstil in Germany, would become a central figure of the New Weimar. One of the founders of Pan in 1894, he designed the elegiac youth for the journal’s binding, and contributed regularly to its artistic decor. For the first issue he was delegated the elaborate figurative frame for the famous Hymns to the Night by Novalis.15 His highly stylized Arcadian Symbolism built on the Antique as much as on Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Arnold Böcklin and Hans von Marees. In his later works, especially in his drawings and prints, von Hofmann also absorbed Expressionist tendencies. He was especially inspired by vanguard dancers such as Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis, and was highly admired by eminent poets and writers such as Rainer Maria Rilke, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Gerhart Hauptmann and Thomas Mann. In 1905, at Kessler’s suggestion and in collaboration with Hofmannsthal, Hofmann executed a series of twelve lithographs for the portfolio edition Tänze (cat. 2), which translate contemporary avant-garde dance into an Arcadian style and celebrate the beauty of the rhythmic line.16 He collaborated on major public projects such as the monumental canvases for the so-called Museumshalle (fig. 7), which Van de Velde designed for the third Künstlerbundausstellung in Dresden in 1906, as well as those for the new court theatre in Weimar in 1907.17 If the project of the New Weimar witnessed a more than promising take-off, its opponents in Weimar and elsewhere soon organized and staged their counterattack.18 Moreover, two important allies at court were lost: Pauline, the mother of Wilhelm Ernst, died in 1904, Fig. 7. Ludwig von Hofmann (1861–1945), Dancers, with Veils, 1905/06, tempera on canvas, 210 × 445 cm.

Klassik Stiftung Weimar (G 546).

16

followed by the sudden passing of Caroline, his twenty-year-old wife in 1905. The Grand Duke progressively distanced himself from Kessler and his modernist politics. Following the successful Rodin exhibition at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in 1904 (fig.

8), Caroline had supported the acquisition of Rodin’s Age of Bronze. The sculptor was working enthusiastically with Kessler on a dedicated Rodin room at the museum and in January 1906, a new exhibition of fourteen of his watercolours was organized. The artist promised to donate these to the museum and dedicated one to the Grand Duke himself. The drawings, representing mostly erotic female nudes, offered a welcome excuse to aggresFig. 8. The opening of the Rodin exhibition at the sively attack Kessler and the New Weimar. The so-called Rodin scanMuseum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Weimar, 1904. dal quickly spread and involved the highest ranks at court, in Klassik Stiftung Weimar. Photograph by Louis Held. particular the court chamberlain, Aimé von Palézieux. Ultimately, in July 1906, Kessler resigned his office at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, but would continue the battle for the New Weimar and his association with the Nietzsche Archive for many years thereafter. Just after his resignation was accepted on 13 July, he assured Van de Velde: “My dear friend, my resignation was accepted, and I am delighted; finally I feel free again after a nightmarish experience that lasted three years. I do not think it is more than a hitch in the development of the Weimar Circle, which is and always has belonged with us, not the Court and especially not the Grand Duke.”19 Kessler kept his apartment, continued to work with Van de Velde on the Nietzsche editions and in 1911–13 fervently promoted the idea of a monumental cult site dedicated to Nietzsche. In 1913 he founded the famous Cranach Press in Weimar. Under his personal guidance, the press would print some of the most exquisite twentieth-century collector’s editions, including Virgil’s Eclogues in the original Latin text, with the German translation

by Rudolf Alexander Schröder and forty-three woodcuts by Maillol.20 Henry Van de Velde and the “Art of the Future” Even before his official engagement with the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Kessler engineered the most controversial, yet most important Weimar appointment, when the Belgian architect, designer and art reformer Henry Van de Velde (cat. 6) was appointed director of the Kunstgewerbliches Seminar, later Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Applied Arts).21 Van de Velde, who initially worked as a painter in Impressionist and NeoImpressionist style, had been devoted fully to architecture and decorative arts since 1893– 94. A fervent advocate for modern art and design, he lectured widely and published on his

17

facilitated the arrival of like-minded artists, and in 1903 Ludwig von Hofmann joined the Kunstschule as professor.14 In 1904 Olde tried, unsuccessfully, to lure Gustav Klimt away from Vienna. Finally, on the recommendation of Max Klinger, he hired the young Sascha Schneider, known today mainly as the illustrator of Karl May’s popular western novels featuring the characters Winnetou and Old Shatterhand. Von Hofmann, who was trained in Dresden and Karlsruhe and a major representative of Symbolism and Jugendstil in Germany, would become a central figure of the New Weimar. One of the founders of Pan in 1894, he designed the elegiac youth for the journal’s binding, and contributed regularly to its artistic decor. For the first issue he was delegated the elaborate figurative frame for the famous Hymns to the Night by Novalis.15 His highly stylized Arcadian Symbolism built on the Antique as much as on Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Arnold Böcklin and Hans von Marees. In his later works, especially in his drawings and prints, von Hofmann also absorbed Expressionist tendencies. He was especially inspired by vanguard dancers such as Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis, and was highly admired by eminent poets and writers such as Rainer Maria Rilke, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Gerhart Hauptmann and Thomas Mann. In 1905, at Kessler’s suggestion and in collaboration with Hofmannsthal, Hofmann executed a series of twelve lithographs for the portfolio edition Tänze (cat. 2), which translate contemporary avant-garde dance into an Arcadian style and celebrate the beauty of the rhythmic line.16 He collaborated on major public projects such as the monumental canvases for the so-called Museumshalle (fig. 7), which Van de Velde designed for the third Künstlerbundausstellung in Dresden in 1906, as well as those for the new court theatre in Weimar in 1907.17 If the project of the New Weimar witnessed a more than promising take-off, its opponents in Weimar and elsewhere soon organized and staged their counterattack.18 Moreover, two important allies at court were lost: Pauline, the mother of Wilhelm Ernst, died in 1904, Fig. 7. Ludwig von Hofmann (1861–1945), Dancers, with Veils, 1905/06, tempera on canvas, 210 × 445 cm.

Klassik Stiftung Weimar (G 546).

16

followed by the sudden passing of Caroline, his twenty-year-old wife in 1905. The Grand Duke progressively distanced himself from Kessler and his modernist politics. Following the successful Rodin exhibition at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in 1904 (fig.

8), Caroline had supported the acquisition of Rodin’s Age of Bronze. The sculptor was working enthusiastically with Kessler on a dedicated Rodin room at the museum and in January 1906, a new exhibition of fourteen of his watercolours was organized. The artist promised to donate these to the museum and dedicated one to the Grand Duke himself. The drawings, representing mostly erotic female nudes, offered a welcome excuse to aggresFig. 8. The opening of the Rodin exhibition at the sively attack Kessler and the New Weimar. The so-called Rodin scanMuseum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Weimar, 1904. dal quickly spread and involved the highest ranks at court, in Klassik Stiftung Weimar. Photograph by Louis Held. particular the court chamberlain, Aimé von Palézieux. Ultimately, in July 1906, Kessler resigned his office at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, but would continue the battle for the New Weimar and his association with the Nietzsche Archive for many years thereafter. Just after his resignation was accepted on 13 July, he assured Van de Velde: “My dear friend, my resignation was accepted, and I am delighted; finally I feel free again after a nightmarish experience that lasted three years. I do not think it is more than a hitch in the development of the Weimar Circle, which is and always has belonged with us, not the Court and especially not the Grand Duke.”19 Kessler kept his apartment, continued to work with Van de Velde on the Nietzsche editions and in 1911–13 fervently promoted the idea of a monumental cult site dedicated to Nietzsche. In 1913 he founded the famous Cranach Press in Weimar. Under his personal guidance, the press would print some of the most exquisite twentieth-century collector’s editions, including Virgil’s Eclogues in the original Latin text, with the German translation

by Rudolf Alexander Schröder and forty-three woodcuts by Maillol.20 Henry Van de Velde and the “Art of the Future” Even before his official engagement with the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Kessler engineered the most controversial, yet most important Weimar appointment, when the Belgian architect, designer and art reformer Henry Van de Velde (cat. 6) was appointed director of the Kunstgewerbliches Seminar, later Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Applied Arts).21 Van de Velde, who initially worked as a painter in Impressionist and NeoImpressionist style, had been devoted fully to architecture and decorative arts since 1893– 94. A fervent advocate for modern art and design, he lectured widely and published on his

17

Fig. 9. Entrance portico of the Nietzsche Archive in Weimar, designed by Henry Van de Velde.

Photograph by Jens Hauspurg, 2010.

Fig. 10. Postcard showing view of the Nietzsche Archive, c. 1903, with a portrait of Nietzsche inserted. Munch Museum, Oslo (B 1874).

Fig. 11. View of assembly room of the Nietzsche Archive in Weimar, designed by Henry Van de Velde, showing short wall with Nietzsche portraits.

Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Nietzsche Archive.

Photograph by Jens Hauspurg, 2010.

Fig. 12. View of assembly room of the Nietzsche Archive in Weimar, designed by Henry Van de Velde, showing Nietzsche herm on the far wall. Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Nietzsche Archive. Photograph

by Alexander Burzik, 2013.

Fig. 13. Installation view of iron stove with “N” signet in the assembly room of the Nietzsche Archive in Weimar. Designed by Henry Van de Velde, 1903, made

by J.F. Schmidt. Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Nietzsche Archive. Photograph by Uwe Gaasch, 2013.

ideas – namely his Kunstgewerbliche Laienpredigten (1902), Vom neuen Stil (1907, cat. 7) and Amo (1909). His mission was to reform life through art and design, providing suitable harmonious settings for the needs of modern men. Increasingly, he moved away from Jugendstil in the search of an abstract ornament based on the physical as well as psychological expression of the pure line.

Kessler was well aware of Van de Velde’s growing reputation and had certainly seen his signature rooms in Siegfried Bing’s Salon de l’Art Nouveau in Paris, inaugurated in spring 1895. He contacted the Belgian in September 1897 and asked him to decorate his Berlin apartment at 18 Köthenerstrasse, a strategically designed stage for Kessler and a kind of promotional tool for his new protégé.22 A month later, Kessler visited Bloemenwerf, Van de Velde’s first house, in Uccle and was deeply impressed by this modernist Gesamtkunstwerk [total work

18

of art].23 With Eberhard von Bodenhausen, a close friend and fellow comrade at Pan, Kessler was instrumental in securing new German clients for Van de Velde and in eventually bringing him to Berlin. Under the aegis of Bodenhausen the Henry Van de Velde company was established in December 1898. In October 1900 the Belgian reformer moved from Uccle to the capital of Imperial Germany, where Kessler organized lectures and introduced him to the most brilliant salons, namely those of Cornelie Richter and Countess Helene Harrach. While the company itself soon ended in a financial disaster, the Berlin years decisively launched Van de Velde’s international career and greatly intensified his alliance with Kessler.

Van de Velde had been an early avid reader of Nietzsche, especially the Zarathustra, and fully absorbed his concept of “Architecture for the search for knowledge.”24 He was deeply impressed by Nietzsche’s prophetic thinking, his expressive language and his lyrical style,

19

Fig. 9. Entrance portico of the Nietzsche Archive in Weimar, designed by Henry Van de Velde.

Photograph by Jens Hauspurg, 2010.

Fig. 10. Postcard showing view of the Nietzsche Archive, c. 1903, with a portrait of Nietzsche inserted. Munch Museum, Oslo (B 1874).

Fig. 11. View of assembly room of the Nietzsche Archive in Weimar, designed by Henry Van de Velde, showing short wall with Nietzsche portraits.

Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Nietzsche Archive.

Photograph by Jens Hauspurg, 2010.

Fig. 12. View of assembly room of the Nietzsche Archive in Weimar, designed by Henry Van de Velde, showing Nietzsche herm on the far wall. Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Nietzsche Archive. Photograph

by Alexander Burzik, 2013.

Fig. 13. Installation view of iron stove with “N” signet in the assembly room of the Nietzsche Archive in Weimar. Designed by Henry Van de Velde, 1903, made

by J.F. Schmidt. Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Nietzsche Archive. Photograph by Uwe Gaasch, 2013.

ideas – namely his Kunstgewerbliche Laienpredigten (1902), Vom neuen Stil (1907, cat. 7) and Amo (1909). His mission was to reform life through art and design, providing suitable harmonious settings for the needs of modern men. Increasingly, he moved away from Jugendstil in the search of an abstract ornament based on the physical as well as psychological expression of the pure line.

Kessler was well aware of Van de Velde’s growing reputation and had certainly seen his signature rooms in Siegfried Bing’s Salon de l’Art Nouveau in Paris, inaugurated in spring 1895. He contacted the Belgian in September 1897 and asked him to decorate his Berlin apartment at 18 Köthenerstrasse, a strategically designed stage for Kessler and a kind of promotional tool for his new protégé.22 A month later, Kessler visited Bloemenwerf, Van de Velde’s first house, in Uccle and was deeply impressed by this modernist Gesamtkunstwerk [total work

18

of art].23 With Eberhard von Bodenhausen, a close friend and fellow comrade at Pan, Kessler was instrumental in securing new German clients for Van de Velde and in eventually bringing him to Berlin. Under the aegis of Bodenhausen the Henry Van de Velde company was established in December 1898. In October 1900 the Belgian reformer moved from Uccle to the capital of Imperial Germany, where Kessler organized lectures and introduced him to the most brilliant salons, namely those of Cornelie Richter and Countess Helene Harrach. While the company itself soon ended in a financial disaster, the Berlin years decisively launched Van de Velde’s international career and greatly intensified his alliance with Kessler.

Van de Velde had been an early avid reader of Nietzsche, especially the Zarathustra, and fully absorbed his concept of “Architecture for the search for knowledge.”24 He was deeply impressed by Nietzsche’s prophetic thinking, his expressive language and his lyrical style,

19

Fig. 14. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche in the library of the Nietzsche Archive with Nietzsche’s Zarathustra and Paul Kühn’s Das Nietzsche Archiv zu Weimar in front, c. 1910. Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Nietzsche Archive. Photograph by Louis Held.

Fig. 15. Henry Van de Velde working on Zarathustra in his studio in Weimar, 1908. Klassik Stiftung Weimar. Photograph by Louis Held.

which often transcend into Van de Velde’s own writings. In March 1901, at Cornelie Richter’s salon in Berlin, he was introduced to Nietzsche’s sister, who immediately invited him to visit the Nietzsche Archive. Upon her return to Weimar, Förster-Nietzsche sent Kessler and Van de Velde “art sections” (Kunstkapitel) from her brother’s unpublished papers, which the Belgian reformer eagerly awaited to better understand how Nietzsche had envisioned “the art of the future.”25 In August that year Van de Velde travelled to Weimar and accompanied Förster-Nietzsche to her brother’s tomb in Röcken on the first anniversary of his death.

When the young Wilhelm Ernst succeeded his grandfather Carl Alexander as Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach in January 1901, high hopes for a new cultural renaissance accompanied his ascension. Intense discussions ensued at the Weimar court on how to reorganize and promote the arts and crafts in Thuringia and whom to entrust with the leadership of these reforms. Förster-Nietzsche and Kessler seized the extraordinary opportunity to advance Van de Velde’s candidacy, hoping to gain a powerful ally for their Weimar agendas. A veritable election campaign was orchestrated, and on 21 December 1901 Van de Velde was invited to an official dinner at the ducal palace. Wilhelm Ernst conferred with him at length in private and, that same evening, offered him the appointment as director of the Kunstgewerbliches Seminar for an annual salary of 6000 Reichsmark.26

20

Even before his official appointment began on 1 April 1902, Van de Velde was invited to oversee the renovation of the Nietzsche Archive.27 The late historicist brick architecture of the Villa Silberblick was given a radical modernist overhaul and turned into a “physiologic-physiognomic Gesamtkunstwerk” in the spirit of Nietzsche.28 A new entrance portico was added and its prominent Antiqua inscription NIETZSCHE-ARCHIV pronounced the official character of the building (figs. 9, 10). The public spaces on the main floor were reshaped and furnished in Van de Velde’s signature style, while the private quarters on the upper floors remained untouched. Rooms on the main floor were designed to stage the Archive’s various activities ranging from lectures, receptions and concerts to editorial meetings and consultations of Nietzsche’s manuscripts. Nietzsche artefacts and portraits in different media were displayed (figs. 11, 12), while the side wall above the stove was adorned with a stylized “Napoleonic-Nietzsche N” (fig. 13).29 Van de Velde’s “Nietzsche temple” offered an unmistakably modernist setting for the growing Nietzsche-cult and positioned the philosopher as key representative of the New Weimar. These refurbishments in 1902–03 cost roughly 50,000 Reichsmark, exceeding the original cost of the entire building, which had amounted to 38,000 Reichsmark. Funds were provided through a loan guaranteed by Alfred Walter Heymel, the founder of the famous journal Die Insel, which later was transformed into the Insel Verlag, who would eventually publish the luxury editions of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Ecce Homo and Dionysian Dithyrambs designed by Van de Velde.

The new Nietzsche Archive opened to the public on 15 October 1903, the anniversary of Nietzsche’s birthday. The following year Paul Kühn published Das Nietzsche-Archiv in Weimar [“The Nietzsche Archive in Weimar”], his official guide to the newly inaugurated building (cat. 8, fig. 14).30 The book presents a decisively modernist design, bound in heavy greyish cardboard and featuring a stylized representation of the new entrance on the cover. Text and images argue the perfect correspondence between Nietzsche’s philosophy and Van de Velde’s design. Kühn characterized Van de Velde, along with John Ruskin and William Morris, as a new Nietzschean type of artist “who is neither a specialist nor a taxonomist, but rather an organizer, a creator of life, a cognitive and loving being, a creator and a prophet, a type of artist which in Leonardo has found so far its highest expression.”31 Van de Velde was presented as “the most modern of men,” who “through his universal learning and eminent intellect has the capacity of a spiritual leader, of a grand cultural agitator.”32 Kühn believed his grand style of linear, ornamental abstraction was born in the spirit of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra “dancing in chains”: Through the chains of logic and construction, Van de Velde attained that self-contained, serene art and its classical form, surrounded by which we find what Nietzsche considered the art of the highest style, to find expression for the spirit of the passionate, intellectually free, bright and fair-minded man who has overcome his passions. “Their Golden ripeness heals the heart; what is perfect teaches hope.” These words of Zarathustra are also for Van de Velde the final goal of life and art.33

21

Fig. 14. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche in the library of the Nietzsche Archive with Nietzsche’s Zarathustra and Paul Kühn’s Das Nietzsche Archiv zu Weimar in front, c. 1910. Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Nietzsche Archive. Photograph by Louis Held.

Fig. 15. Henry Van de Velde working on Zarathustra in his studio in Weimar, 1908. Klassik Stiftung Weimar. Photograph by Louis Held.

which often transcend into Van de Velde’s own writings. In March 1901, at Cornelie Richter’s salon in Berlin, he was introduced to Nietzsche’s sister, who immediately invited him to visit the Nietzsche Archive. Upon her return to Weimar, Förster-Nietzsche sent Kessler and Van de Velde “art sections” (Kunstkapitel) from her brother’s unpublished papers, which the Belgian reformer eagerly awaited to better understand how Nietzsche had envisioned “the art of the future.”25 In August that year Van de Velde travelled to Weimar and accompanied Förster-Nietzsche to her brother’s tomb in Röcken on the first anniversary of his death.

When the young Wilhelm Ernst succeeded his grandfather Carl Alexander as Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach in January 1901, high hopes for a new cultural renaissance accompanied his ascension. Intense discussions ensued at the Weimar court on how to reorganize and promote the arts and crafts in Thuringia and whom to entrust with the leadership of these reforms. Förster-Nietzsche and Kessler seized the extraordinary opportunity to advance Van de Velde’s candidacy, hoping to gain a powerful ally for their Weimar agendas. A veritable election campaign was orchestrated, and on 21 December 1901 Van de Velde was invited to an official dinner at the ducal palace. Wilhelm Ernst conferred with him at length in private and, that same evening, offered him the appointment as director of the Kunstgewerbliches Seminar for an annual salary of 6000 Reichsmark.26

20

Even before his official appointment began on 1 April 1902, Van de Velde was invited to oversee the renovation of the Nietzsche Archive.27 The late historicist brick architecture of the Villa Silberblick was given a radical modernist overhaul and turned into a “physiologic-physiognomic Gesamtkunstwerk” in the spirit of Nietzsche.28 A new entrance portico was added and its prominent Antiqua inscription NIETZSCHE-ARCHIV pronounced the official character of the building (figs. 9, 10). The public spaces on the main floor were reshaped and furnished in Van de Velde’s signature style, while the private quarters on the upper floors remained untouched. Rooms on the main floor were designed to stage the Archive’s various activities ranging from lectures, receptions and concerts to editorial meetings and consultations of Nietzsche’s manuscripts. Nietzsche artefacts and portraits in different media were displayed (figs. 11, 12), while the side wall above the stove was adorned with a stylized “Napoleonic-Nietzsche N” (fig. 13).29 Van de Velde’s “Nietzsche temple” offered an unmistakably modernist setting for the growing Nietzsche-cult and positioned the philosopher as key representative of the New Weimar. These refurbishments in 1902–03 cost roughly 50,000 Reichsmark, exceeding the original cost of the entire building, which had amounted to 38,000 Reichsmark. Funds were provided through a loan guaranteed by Alfred Walter Heymel, the founder of the famous journal Die Insel, which later was transformed into the Insel Verlag, who would eventually publish the luxury editions of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Ecce Homo and Dionysian Dithyrambs designed by Van de Velde.

The new Nietzsche Archive opened to the public on 15 October 1903, the anniversary of Nietzsche’s birthday. The following year Paul Kühn published Das Nietzsche-Archiv in Weimar [“The Nietzsche Archive in Weimar”], his official guide to the newly inaugurated building (cat. 8, fig. 14).30 The book presents a decisively modernist design, bound in heavy greyish cardboard and featuring a stylized representation of the new entrance on the cover. Text and images argue the perfect correspondence between Nietzsche’s philosophy and Van de Velde’s design. Kühn characterized Van de Velde, along with John Ruskin and William Morris, as a new Nietzschean type of artist “who is neither a specialist nor a taxonomist, but rather an organizer, a creator of life, a cognitive and loving being, a creator and a prophet, a type of artist which in Leonardo has found so far its highest expression.”31 Van de Velde was presented as “the most modern of men,” who “through his universal learning and eminent intellect has the capacity of a spiritual leader, of a grand cultural agitator.”32 Kühn believed his grand style of linear, ornamental abstraction was born in the spirit of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra “dancing in chains”: Through the chains of logic and construction, Van de Velde attained that self-contained, serene art and its classical form, surrounded by which we find what Nietzsche considered the art of the highest style, to find expression for the spirit of the passionate, intellectually free, bright and fair-minded man who has overcome his passions. “Their Golden ripeness heals the heart; what is perfect teaches hope.” These words of Zarathustra are also for Van de Velde the final goal of life and art.33

21

Fig. 16. Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, double title page, designed by Henry Van de Velde, Leipzig 1908 (see cat. 11a–b).

Fig. 17. Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, double title page, designed by Henry Van de Velde, Leipzig 1908 (see cat. 12a–b).

Fig. 18. Friedrich Nietzsche, Dionysos Dithyrambs, title page, designed by Henry Van de Velde, Leipzig 1914 (see cat. 13).

The public face of the Nietzsche Archive had acquired a decisively modernist physiognomy.

Moreover, its director would often be dressed in fabrics designed by Van de Velde as she welcomed guests (see fig. 2).

On his first visit to the Nietzsche Archive in Weimar on 7 August 1897, Kessler and Förster-Nietzsche discussed a luxury edition of Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra [“Thus Spoke Zarathustra”].34 First published in 1883–85, it had become a cult-book for Nietzsche adepts by 1900 and artists like Melchior Lechter, Giovanni Segantini, Peter Behrens and Adolph Michael Böhm saw it as an almost existential task to give the book an “adequate” Zarathustrian vestment. Kessler declined to take over the official editorship, but agreed to supervise decor and printing of the collector’s edition. Initially he had planned to set the Zarathustra in a Morris typeface and to entrust Charles Ricketts with its design. But in September 1897 Kessler instead proposed that Van de Velde collaborate on the project, which he passionately envisioned as “undoubtedly the most beautiful book produced for centuries.”35 Soon Georges Lemmen, another Belgian designer and close friend of Van de Velde, was asked to draw an entirely new typeface for it. Late in 1899 the Zarathustrian alphabet was completed and the letters were cut and cast early in the new year. When the first proofs arrived in March 1901, Förster-Nietzsche enthusiastically thanked Lemmen for his typeface, which “expresses perfectly the overall character of the Zarathustra.”36 At the same time Kessler and Van de Velde were working intensely on format and ornamentation.37 Over the next few years, however, the project met considerable delays and editorial contracts with several publishers were dissolved. In late 1906 Insel Verlag finally assumed the prestigious undertaking (cat. 11). By summer 1907, over the course of a few weeks of feverish, solitary work, Van de Velde reworked and finalized the ornaments (fig. 15). On behalf of Insel Verlag, in 1908 the Offizin Drugulin in Leipzig printed Zarathustra in 530 copies: nos. 1–100 bound in morocco, nos. 101–530 bound in vellum. The monumental volumes,

22

measuring 37.8 × 26.5 cm, were printed in black, burgundy and gold on Van Geldern laid paper. The text, set in Lemmen’s typeface in justified print, is devoid of ornament except for small chapter dividers and interspersed spacers between sentences printed in gold.

These ornamental signs crown the dense blocks of text, and elegantly rhythmicize and accentuate the aphoristic tone of Zarathustra’s speech. The high rising blocks are positioned asymmetrically on the grand sheets of paper, with larger margins on the outside and underneath, and quite literally assume the character of Zarathustra’s “new tablets.”38 In Van de Velde’s preliminary designs text and ornaments were more closely intertwined, while they are strictly separated in the final layout. Symmetric abstract ornaments, based on cognate modular forms, adorn the cover, double frontispiece and title page as well as the opening pages of the four parts of the book. The ornament on the cover is printed in gold, all others in radiant burgundy and gold – “the intense Yellow and the blistering Red” that the same Zarathustra celebrates.39 Particularly imposing is the vital energy of the double frontispiece (fig. 16), fully covered with pulsating ornament, which enshrines the relatively small inscriptions showing the title, author name and publisher. On the following title page the relation is reversed; a vertical ornamental base seems to support the prominent title and author name. The four parts of Zarathustra – a barely masked reference to the four gospels – are each introduced by individual opening pages with monumental ornaments in square format. Van de Velde’s Zarathustra represents a pinnacle of avant-garde book design, building on the British arts-and-crafts tradition, but grander in style, less decorative and more architectural in expression. His design engages the reader and creates a monumental entrance to Zarathustra’s formidable prophecies which required a specifically designed typeface as much as a unique ornamentation in “Zarathustra-style.”

Also in 1908, Ecce Homo. Wie man wird, was man ist [“Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is”] appeared for the first time in print, a fundamentally different book with an

23

Fig. 16. Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, double title page, designed by Henry Van de Velde, Leipzig 1908 (see cat. 11a–b).

Fig. 17. Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, double title page, designed by Henry Van de Velde, Leipzig 1908 (see cat. 12a–b).

Fig. 18. Friedrich Nietzsche, Dionysos Dithyrambs, title page, designed by Henry Van de Velde, Leipzig 1914 (see cat. 13).

The public face of the Nietzsche Archive had acquired a decisively modernist physiognomy.

Moreover, its director would often be dressed in fabrics designed by Van de Velde as she welcomed guests (see fig. 2).

On his first visit to the Nietzsche Archive in Weimar on 7 August 1897, Kessler and Förster-Nietzsche discussed a luxury edition of Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra [“Thus Spoke Zarathustra”].34 First published in 1883–85, it had become a cult-book for Nietzsche adepts by 1900 and artists like Melchior Lechter, Giovanni Segantini, Peter Behrens and Adolph Michael Böhm saw it as an almost existential task to give the book an “adequate” Zarathustrian vestment. Kessler declined to take over the official editorship, but agreed to supervise decor and printing of the collector’s edition. Initially he had planned to set the Zarathustra in a Morris typeface and to entrust Charles Ricketts with its design. But in September 1897 Kessler instead proposed that Van de Velde collaborate on the project, which he passionately envisioned as “undoubtedly the most beautiful book produced for centuries.”35 Soon Georges Lemmen, another Belgian designer and close friend of Van de Velde, was asked to draw an entirely new typeface for it. Late in 1899 the Zarathustrian alphabet was completed and the letters were cut and cast early in the new year. When the first proofs arrived in March 1901, Förster-Nietzsche enthusiastically thanked Lemmen for his typeface, which “expresses perfectly the overall character of the Zarathustra.”36 At the same time Kessler and Van de Velde were working intensely on format and ornamentation.37 Over the next few years, however, the project met considerable delays and editorial contracts with several publishers were dissolved. In late 1906 Insel Verlag finally assumed the prestigious undertaking (cat. 11). By summer 1907, over the course of a few weeks of feverish, solitary work, Van de Velde reworked and finalized the ornaments (fig. 15). On behalf of Insel Verlag, in 1908 the Offizin Drugulin in Leipzig printed Zarathustra in 530 copies: nos. 1–100 bound in morocco, nos. 101–530 bound in vellum. The monumental volumes,

22

measuring 37.8 × 26.5 cm, were printed in black, burgundy and gold on Van Geldern laid paper. The text, set in Lemmen’s typeface in justified print, is devoid of ornament except for small chapter dividers and interspersed spacers between sentences printed in gold.

These ornamental signs crown the dense blocks of text, and elegantly rhythmicize and accentuate the aphoristic tone of Zarathustra’s speech. The high rising blocks are positioned asymmetrically on the grand sheets of paper, with larger margins on the outside and underneath, and quite literally assume the character of Zarathustra’s “new tablets.”38 In Van de Velde’s preliminary designs text and ornaments were more closely intertwined, while they are strictly separated in the final layout. Symmetric abstract ornaments, based on cognate modular forms, adorn the cover, double frontispiece and title page as well as the opening pages of the four parts of the book. The ornament on the cover is printed in gold, all others in radiant burgundy and gold – “the intense Yellow and the blistering Red” that the same Zarathustra celebrates.39 Particularly imposing is the vital energy of the double frontispiece (fig. 16), fully covered with pulsating ornament, which enshrines the relatively small inscriptions showing the title, author name and publisher. On the following title page the relation is reversed; a vertical ornamental base seems to support the prominent title and author name. The four parts of Zarathustra – a barely masked reference to the four gospels – are each introduced by individual opening pages with monumental ornaments in square format. Van de Velde’s Zarathustra represents a pinnacle of avant-garde book design, building on the British arts-and-crafts tradition, but grander in style, less decorative and more architectural in expression. His design engages the reader and creates a monumental entrance to Zarathustra’s formidable prophecies which required a specifically designed typeface as much as a unique ornamentation in “Zarathustra-style.”

Also in 1908, Ecce Homo. Wie man wird, was man ist [“Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is”] appeared for the first time in print, a fundamentally different book with an

23

essentially different design.40 Nietzsche had started his autobiographical reflections on his forty-fourth birthday, 15 October 1888, and would continue working on them until his final mental collapse in January 1889. The unfinished text has a complex genesis and clearly shows signs of the author’s progressing delusions and frenzy.41 Its intimate, self-reflective character is stressed in the introductory remarks: “And so I will narrate my life to myself.”42 Retrospectively, the philosopher reassesses his own philosophical writings, constantly shifting between intimate confessions, sharp critical remarks and megalomaniacal affirmations. In May 1896 Kessler, Förster-Nietzsche, Rudolf Steiner, then editor at the Goethe and Schiller Archive, and Kessler’s friend Raoul Richter, son of Cornelie Richter and professor of philosophy in Leipzig, met in Naumburg to discuss the imponderability of publishing Nietzsche’s controversial text. Kessler noted in his diary on 14 May 1896: “A wealth of interesting and beautiful passages; but alongside outbursts of extraordinary megalomania. I have strongly advised against publication at this point in time, as did Steiner; at present it will probably be omitted.”43 Twelve years later, however, after Nietzsche’s death and in recognition of his extraordinary reception since, things had changed fundamentally and Van de Velde was entrusted with the typography and ornamentation of the Ecce Homo (cat. 12).

The book measures 24.9 × 19.5 cm, the text was set in Renaissance-Antiqua by Genzsch & Heyse and printed in Leipzig by Friedrich Richter on heavy, light beige Japanese laid paper.

The standard edition of 1100 copies was bound in half-vellum and grey cardboard, and the limited edition of 150 copies in soft greyish buckskin, all adorned with a small title vignette in gold on the cover and the title repeated on the spine. The highly artificial, ornamental letters are inscribed into the expanding circle of the vignette. An impressive double title page opens the book, printed in light brown and adorned with two symmetrical ornaments encapsulating the two parts of the title, “Ecce” and “Homo,” respectively (fig. 17). The ornaments rise upon the author’s name at the bottom of the page written in a freely drawn sequence of “agitated” letters. The double page expresses both vital energy and ornamental order, the first being contained and controlled by the latter, which contrasts with the severe simplicity of the almost unadorned, densely spaced text pages. The opening words of new paragraphs are set in light brown capital letters and, occasionally, spacers are introduced, also in light brown. Such severe typography was meant to temper and domesticate Nietzsche’s last erratic reflections.

On the eve of World War I and shortly before his forced resignation from the Kunstgewerbeschule, Van de Velde dedicated himself almost prophetically to the typography and ornamentation of Nietzsche’s last authorized publication, the Dionysos Dithyramben [“Dionysian Dithyrambs”] (cat. 13).44 Based on earlier fragments, the cycle of nine poems in free rhyme – in the tradition of ancient dithyrambic songs in honour of Dionysos – had been composed in 1888–89 in the last few months before Nietzsche’s derangement.45 First published in 1891 as an appendix to the fourth part of the Zarathustra, Nietzsche himself described them as “Songs of Zarathustra.”46 Only 150 copies of the slim volume were printed on Aldwych laid paper by Royal Joh. Enschedé in Haarlem and bound in reddish-brown morocco, another twenty copies were printed on vellum and bound in reddish-brown capeskin. The cover

24

presents three simple lines with the words “Nietzsche Dionysos Dithyramben” supported by a small ornamental vignette and all printed in gold. The title page is dominated by a large ornament (fig. 18), which seems to allude to an ancient crater. It is drawn with delicate lines and printed in red, while a few fields are filled with gold with great economy.

The letters used for the title, again disposed in three lines, seem to be suspended above the ornament and drawn with the same fine stylus. Gilding was applied by hand and entrusted to Graily Hewitt, the leading specialist in London. With the outbreak of war these volumes were eventually sequestered and dispersed. The publisher of Insel Verlag, Anton Kippenberg, managed to recover some after the war, but well-preserved copies remain extremely rare.

These ground-breaking editions as much as his redesigned Archive gave Nietzsche a decisively modern physiognomy and made a fundamental contribution to the New Weimar.

The alliance between Kessler and Van de Velde was built on sympathy and reciprocal esteem, and driven by similar aesthetic ideals and highflying ambitions. The two towering figures of the New Weimar conceived and managed many of its central projects together. Their extraordinary friendship was only reinforced through victorious battles and dramatic crises and would continue after the final defeat of the New Weimar, when Van de Velde, upon the outbreak of World War I, had to quit his office and take exile in Switzerland.

Nietzschean Iconographia: From Ailing Philosopher to Heroic Prophet of Modernity With the establishment of the Nietzsche Archive and the rapidly growing Nietzsche congregation, the demand for images steadily increased. But how to represent a philosopher who would never regain his mental health after his breakdown in 1889? How to find a convincing formula for the “philosopher with the hammer” – the heroic prophet of modernity – without ignoring his pathological state of mind? Initially, artists such as Arnold Kramer and Curt Stoeving chose to represent the ailing Nietzsche. Kramer’s statuette, Nietzsche in his

Fig. 19. Hans Olde, Nietzsche on his Sickbed, 1899, oil on cardboard, 46.5 × 64.5 cm. Klassik Stiftung Weimar (NGe/00643).

25

essentially different design.40 Nietzsche had started his autobiographical reflections on his forty-fourth birthday, 15 October 1888, and would continue working on them until his final mental collapse in January 1889. The unfinished text has a complex genesis and clearly shows signs of the author’s progressing delusions and frenzy.41 Its intimate, self-reflective character is stressed in the introductory remarks: “And so I will narrate my life to myself.”42 Retrospectively, the philosopher reassesses his own philosophical writings, constantly shifting between intimate confessions, sharp critical remarks and megalomaniacal affirmations. In May 1896 Kessler, Förster-Nietzsche, Rudolf Steiner, then editor at the Goethe and Schiller Archive, and Kessler’s friend Raoul Richter, son of Cornelie Richter and professor of philosophy in Leipzig, met in Naumburg to discuss the imponderability of publishing Nietzsche’s controversial text. Kessler noted in his diary on 14 May 1896: “A wealth of interesting and beautiful passages; but alongside outbursts of extraordinary megalomania. I have strongly advised against publication at this point in time, as did Steiner; at present it will probably be omitted.”43 Twelve years later, however, after Nietzsche’s death and in recognition of his extraordinary reception since, things had changed fundamentally and Van de Velde was entrusted with the typography and ornamentation of the Ecce Homo (cat. 12).

The book measures 24.9 × 19.5 cm, the text was set in Renaissance-Antiqua by Genzsch & Heyse and printed in Leipzig by Friedrich Richter on heavy, light beige Japanese laid paper.

The standard edition of 1100 copies was bound in half-vellum and grey cardboard, and the limited edition of 150 copies in soft greyish buckskin, all adorned with a small title vignette in gold on the cover and the title repeated on the spine. The highly artificial, ornamental letters are inscribed into the expanding circle of the vignette. An impressive double title page opens the book, printed in light brown and adorned with two symmetrical ornaments encapsulating the two parts of the title, “Ecce” and “Homo,” respectively (fig. 17). The ornaments rise upon the author’s name at the bottom of the page written in a freely drawn sequence of “agitated” letters. The double page expresses both vital energy and ornamental order, the first being contained and controlled by the latter, which contrasts with the severe simplicity of the almost unadorned, densely spaced text pages. The opening words of new paragraphs are set in light brown capital letters and, occasionally, spacers are introduced, also in light brown. Such severe typography was meant to temper and domesticate Nietzsche’s last erratic reflections.

On the eve of World War I and shortly before his forced resignation from the Kunstgewerbeschule, Van de Velde dedicated himself almost prophetically to the typography and ornamentation of Nietzsche’s last authorized publication, the Dionysos Dithyramben [“Dionysian Dithyrambs”] (cat. 13).44 Based on earlier fragments, the cycle of nine poems in free rhyme – in the tradition of ancient dithyrambic songs in honour of Dionysos – had been composed in 1888–89 in the last few months before Nietzsche’s derangement.45 First published in 1891 as an appendix to the fourth part of the Zarathustra, Nietzsche himself described them as “Songs of Zarathustra.”46 Only 150 copies of the slim volume were printed on Aldwych laid paper by Royal Joh. Enschedé in Haarlem and bound in reddish-brown morocco, another twenty copies were printed on vellum and bound in reddish-brown capeskin. The cover

24

presents three simple lines with the words “Nietzsche Dionysos Dithyramben” supported by a small ornamental vignette and all printed in gold. The title page is dominated by a large ornament (fig. 18), which seems to allude to an ancient crater. It is drawn with delicate lines and printed in red, while a few fields are filled with gold with great economy.

The letters used for the title, again disposed in three lines, seem to be suspended above the ornament and drawn with the same fine stylus. Gilding was applied by hand and entrusted to Graily Hewitt, the leading specialist in London. With the outbreak of war these volumes were eventually sequestered and dispersed. The publisher of Insel Verlag, Anton Kippenberg, managed to recover some after the war, but well-preserved copies remain extremely rare.

These ground-breaking editions as much as his redesigned Archive gave Nietzsche a decisively modern physiognomy and made a fundamental contribution to the New Weimar.

The alliance between Kessler and Van de Velde was built on sympathy and reciprocal esteem, and driven by similar aesthetic ideals and highflying ambitions. The two towering figures of the New Weimar conceived and managed many of its central projects together. Their extraordinary friendship was only reinforced through victorious battles and dramatic crises and would continue after the final defeat of the New Weimar, when Van de Velde, upon the outbreak of World War I, had to quit his office and take exile in Switzerland.

Nietzschean Iconographia: From Ailing Philosopher to Heroic Prophet of Modernity With the establishment of the Nietzsche Archive and the rapidly growing Nietzsche congregation, the demand for images steadily increased. But how to represent a philosopher who would never regain his mental health after his breakdown in 1889? How to find a convincing formula for the “philosopher with the hammer” – the heroic prophet of modernity – without ignoring his pathological state of mind? Initially, artists such as Arnold Kramer and Curt Stoeving chose to represent the ailing Nietzsche. Kramer’s statuette, Nietzsche in his

Fig. 19. Hans Olde, Nietzsche on his Sickbed, 1899, oil on cardboard, 46.5 × 64.5 cm. Klassik Stiftung Weimar (NGe/00643).

25

Fig. 20. Max Klinger (1857–1920), Beethoven, 1902, marble, jasper, ivory and bronze; overall height: 310 cm. Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig (P 28).

Fig. 21. Max Klinger (1857–1920), Prometheus Freed, 1891, etching, aquatint and mezzotint; plate: 24.8 × 33.2 cm; sheet: 36.7 × 44.1 cm. Signed and dated at lower right: MK 91. Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig (Inv. NI 2483/37).

Fig. 22. Max Klinger (1857–1920), And Yet, 1888, etching, aquatint and mezzotint; plate: 37.8 × 27.2 cm; sheet: 60.9 × 45.4 cm. Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig (Inv. NI 460/2).

WIEDER AUF / EWIG LAEUFT DAS JAHR DES SEINS.50 The painting was acquired for 10,000 Reichsmark for the Nationalgalerie in Berlin, but never had any lasting impact on Nietzsche’s Iconographia. When Max Klinger had to decline, Stoeving was charged with the execution of Nietzsche’s death mask, and in 1901 modelled a rather stiff and frigid marble bust. A plaster cast of Stoeving’s mask then provided the base for Klinger’s famous Nietzsche portraits, which would immediately overshadow the former’s achievements, and to which we will return shortly. The portraits by Kramer and Stoeving fully reflect the inherent difficulties in conceiving an image of the deranged philosopher that would correspond to the expectations of the Nietzsche Archive and the growing Nietzsche congregation.

In 1897 Hans Olde was first approached to etch a “Nietzsche head” for Pan, and in the summer 1899, finally, was invited to visit Villa Silberblick.51 For a period of almost six weeks he carefully observed the ailing philosopher, executing a series of haunting photographs and numerous studies in pen, chalk and oil (fig. 19). In May 1900 his “Nietzsche head” (cat. 18) was published in the final issue of Pan. The etching is finely modelled in sharp chiaroscuro. It concentrates on the physiognomy, and comparison with his many photographs shows how the artist with great sensitivity transformed the deranged Nietzsche into a promethean thinker suffering from the gravity of his insight. Nietzsche’s sickness is here interpreted as a consequence of his radical search for truth in the solitude of the Zarathustrian mountains. The widely acclaimed etching was soon also marketed in a slightly larger format by the Galerie Gurlitt in Berlin. A large, almost life-size chalk drawing of “Nietzsche on his sickbed” decorated the reception room of the Nietzsche Archive and deeply impressed many visitors, notably Van de Velde on his very first visit in August 1901:

Armchair, executed in 1898, reduced the philosopher to a broken elderly man.47 Stoeving’s representations were more ambitious, but would not convince the Nietzsche congregation either.48 Initially trained as an architect, Stoeving later studied at the Akademie für Graphische Künste und Buchgestaltung in Leipzig. Early on he was in close contact with Rainer Maria Rilke, Stefan George and the Nietzsche Archive, and today he is, indeed, mainly recorded for his portraits of George and Nietzsche. In 1894 Förster-Nietzsche invited him, against the explicit wishes of her mother Franziska, to Naumburg to execute a portrait of Nietzsche, causing a quarrel between the two women. The half-length portrait shows the philosopher frontally seated in an armchair on the veranda of the family dwelling at 18 Weingarten. It was illustrated in Pan in 1895 and later acquired for the Nietzsche Archive. The monumental, full-length version presents Nietzsche in profile, seated behind a wooden balustrade and overarched by a pergola (cat. 15). His fragile figure seems literally overwhelmed by the framing garden elements: the row of meticulously described pots in front of the balustrade and the abundant canopy of grapevine. In strong contrast, the garden wall is adorned in capital letters with Nietzsche’s famous dictum from Zarathustra: MEIN LEID UND MEIN MITLEID! / WAS LIEGT DARAN! / TRACHTE ICH DENN NACH GLUECKE?/ ICH TRACHTE NACH MEINEM WERKE!49 In compensation for this rather bourgeois image of Nietzsche in a garden setting, a monumental, architectural frame in doric order was added with another inscription from Zarathustra: ALLES STIRBT ALLES BLUEHT

26

27

Fig. 20. Max Klinger (1857–1920), Beethoven, 1902, marble, jasper, ivory and bronze; overall height: 310 cm. Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig (P 28).

Fig. 21. Max Klinger (1857–1920), Prometheus Freed, 1891, etching, aquatint and mezzotint; plate: 24.8 × 33.2 cm; sheet: 36.7 × 44.1 cm. Signed and dated at lower right: MK 91. Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig (Inv. NI 2483/37).

Fig. 22. Max Klinger (1857–1920), And Yet, 1888, etching, aquatint and mezzotint; plate: 37.8 × 27.2 cm; sheet: 60.9 × 45.4 cm. Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig (Inv. NI 460/2).

WIEDER AUF / EWIG LAEUFT DAS JAHR DES SEINS.50 The painting was acquired for 10,000 Reichsmark for the Nationalgalerie in Berlin, but never had any lasting impact on Nietzsche’s Iconographia. When Max Klinger had to decline, Stoeving was charged with the execution of Nietzsche’s death mask, and in 1901 modelled a rather stiff and frigid marble bust. A plaster cast of Stoeving’s mask then provided the base for Klinger’s famous Nietzsche portraits, which would immediately overshadow the former’s achievements, and to which we will return shortly. The portraits by Kramer and Stoeving fully reflect the inherent difficulties in conceiving an image of the deranged philosopher that would correspond to the expectations of the Nietzsche Archive and the growing Nietzsche congregation.

In 1897 Hans Olde was first approached to etch a “Nietzsche head” for Pan, and in the summer 1899, finally, was invited to visit Villa Silberblick.51 For a period of almost six weeks he carefully observed the ailing philosopher, executing a series of haunting photographs and numerous studies in pen, chalk and oil (fig. 19). In May 1900 his “Nietzsche head” (cat. 18) was published in the final issue of Pan. The etching is finely modelled in sharp chiaroscuro. It concentrates on the physiognomy, and comparison with his many photographs shows how the artist with great sensitivity transformed the deranged Nietzsche into a promethean thinker suffering from the gravity of his insight. Nietzsche’s sickness is here interpreted as a consequence of his radical search for truth in the solitude of the Zarathustrian mountains. The widely acclaimed etching was soon also marketed in a slightly larger format by the Galerie Gurlitt in Berlin. A large, almost life-size chalk drawing of “Nietzsche on his sickbed” decorated the reception room of the Nietzsche Archive and deeply impressed many visitors, notably Van de Velde on his very first visit in August 1901:

Armchair, executed in 1898, reduced the philosopher to a broken elderly man.47 Stoeving’s representations were more ambitious, but would not convince the Nietzsche congregation either.48 Initially trained as an architect, Stoeving later studied at the Akademie für Graphische Künste und Buchgestaltung in Leipzig. Early on he was in close contact with Rainer Maria Rilke, Stefan George and the Nietzsche Archive, and today he is, indeed, mainly recorded for his portraits of George and Nietzsche. In 1894 Förster-Nietzsche invited him, against the explicit wishes of her mother Franziska, to Naumburg to execute a portrait of Nietzsche, causing a quarrel between the two women. The half-length portrait shows the philosopher frontally seated in an armchair on the veranda of the family dwelling at 18 Weingarten. It was illustrated in Pan in 1895 and later acquired for the Nietzsche Archive. The monumental, full-length version presents Nietzsche in profile, seated behind a wooden balustrade and overarched by a pergola (cat. 15). His fragile figure seems literally overwhelmed by the framing garden elements: the row of meticulously described pots in front of the balustrade and the abundant canopy of grapevine. In strong contrast, the garden wall is adorned in capital letters with Nietzsche’s famous dictum from Zarathustra: MEIN LEID UND MEIN MITLEID! / WAS LIEGT DARAN! / TRACHTE ICH DENN NACH GLUECKE?/ ICH TRACHTE NACH MEINEM WERKE!49 In compensation for this rather bourgeois image of Nietzsche in a garden setting, a monumental, architectural frame in doric order was added with another inscription from Zarathustra: ALLES STIRBT ALLES BLUEHT

26

27

A monumental, life-size drawing. The irregular oval of his face indicated Nietzsche’s Slavic origins, a bunch of strong black hair covered his mouth; unusually thick eyebrows arched over the deep sockets in which the eyes lay. I felt attracted to these like one is attracted by an abyss populated by vipers – and I thought of the bitter aphorisms which Zarathustra throws upon his disciples. The excitement, which had awestruck the draughtsman while capturing the features of his model passed over to me – so arrestingly, that I can hardly imagine today that I did not see Nietzsche when he was still alive.52

The success of Olde’s portraits would contribute decisively to his appointment as director of the Kunstschule in Weimar in 1902.

Max Klinger With Nietzsche’s death, his iconography entered into a new stage. Max Klinger was among the most acclaimed German artists of the time, and also highly esteemed at the Weimar court.53 Hugo von Hofmannsthal described him in 1895 as the “most original artist that Germany is privileged to possess.”54 He worked in his native Leipzig, and in 1903 also acquired a summer studio in Großjena not far from Naumburg. Klinger’s world view was built as much on Charles Darwin and Richard Wagner, on Arthur Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, as it was on contemporary psychology. He absorbed Greek antiquity and Italian Renaissance as well as the art of Arnold Böcklin, Felicien Rops and Auguste Rodin and was, at the same time, considered to be quintessentially German in character. Widely esteemed for the virtuosity and dark symbolism of his graphic cycles, including A Glove (1881), A Love (1887) and On Death Part I (1889), he soon dedicated himself to monumental history paintings and grand sculptural monuments – most notably Christ on Olympus (1897), which Ludwig Hevesi triumphantly called a “highly modern act of genius” – and his famous 1902 Beethoven (fig. 20, cat. 21).55 The Beethoven was conceived during a stay in Paris in 1885–86, and realized over the following years in coloured marble, jasper, ivory and bronze – a sort of modern restitution of the colossal cult statue of Zeus in ivory and gold with which Phidias had once adorned the temple in Olympia.56 In 1902 its spectacular presentation in the Vienna Secession, enshrined by Josef Hoffmann’s architecture and Gustav Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze, consecrated Klinger’s statue immediately as a paragon of modern German art. Much like Rodin’s Thinker, the Beethoven was seen as a universal representation of heroic genius. The city of Leipzig acquired it that year for an exceptional 250,000 Reichsmark and planned a dedicated addition to the museum for it.

While his contemporaries saw Klinger mostly as a Nietzschean artist, he personally emphasized the importance of Schopenhauer, rather than Nietzsche, to his world view.57 His etching series Brahms Fantasies (1894) and On Death II (1898) and such compositions as Abduction of Prometheus, Prometheus Freed (fig. 21), Integer Vitae, And Yet (fig. 22) and To the Beauty seem to be infused with Nietzsche’s vitalistic philosophy and absorb motifs of his mythology. Klinger was certainly familiar with Nietzsche’s writings, particularly the Zarathustra, and was a close friend of the most influential early propagator of Nietzsche’s critique of modern culture,

28

Fig. 23. Max Klinger (1857–1920), Bust of Nietzsche, 1902, bronze; 50 cm high. Private collection.

Fig. 24. Max Klinger (1857–1920), Bust of Nietzsche, 1903, marble; 63 cm high. The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (N.Sk-2240).

Georg Brandes, whom he later portrayed several times. If the prominent eagle accompanying Beethoven was an obvious reference to Phidias’ statue of Zeus at Olympia, for many contemporaries he would naturally transform into the faithful attendant of Zarathustra’s solitude. Elsa Asenijeff, Klinger’s companion and muse, envisioned the eagle in such Zarathustrian terms: A Rock! High up, because it seems to reflect the colours of thunder clouds. The eagle, dominator of the loftiest heights, is hardly able to hook his claws on it. Above stands a throne of bronze, the bronze of our age. A throne of ideas. Here Beethoven is seated in a pose full of thoughts. His body, leaning forward in thought, seems to find support in his powerfully clinched fist. His eye seems to be dreaming into distance, where he finds his own inner being. It is not Beethoven the man anymore, but an enthroned genius beyond time.58

Paul Kühn was even more explicit; in his publication on the Nietzsche Archive he described Böcklin and Klinger as representatives of a new Nietzschean type of artist, and Klinger’s Beethoven as “embodiment of the superhuman” and “the most glorious, joyful, artistic affirmation of Nietzsche’s Zarathustrian worship.”59 When Pan approached Klinger in 1897 to illustrate Nietzsche’s parable Der Riese, he declined and Ernst Moritz Geyger was finally commissioned to produce the etching (cat. 17). Nevertheless, immediately following Geyger’s etching, a reproduction of Klinger’s Philosopher from the series On Death II was printed. Such association was even more explicit when in the second issue of the second year of Pan, 1896– 97, a series of Nietzsche poems, Aus den Sprüchen Zarathustras [“From Zarathustra’s Proverbs”], was framed with two famous Klinger etchings, Remembrance and Prometheus Freed. The first

29

A monumental, life-size drawing. The irregular oval of his face indicated Nietzsche’s Slavic origins, a bunch of strong black hair covered his mouth; unusually thick eyebrows arched over the deep sockets in which the eyes lay. I felt attracted to these like one is attracted by an abyss populated by vipers – and I thought of the bitter aphorisms which Zarathustra throws upon his disciples. The excitement, which had awestruck the draughtsman while capturing the features of his model passed over to me – so arrestingly, that I can hardly imagine today that I did not see Nietzsche when he was still alive.52

The success of Olde’s portraits would contribute decisively to his appointment as director of the Kunstschule in Weimar in 1902.

Max Klinger With Nietzsche’s death, his iconography entered into a new stage. Max Klinger was among the most acclaimed German artists of the time, and also highly esteemed at the Weimar court.53 Hugo von Hofmannsthal described him in 1895 as the “most original artist that Germany is privileged to possess.”54 He worked in his native Leipzig, and in 1903 also acquired a summer studio in Großjena not far from Naumburg. Klinger’s world view was built as much on Charles Darwin and Richard Wagner, on Arthur Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, as it was on contemporary psychology. He absorbed Greek antiquity and Italian Renaissance as well as the art of Arnold Böcklin, Felicien Rops and Auguste Rodin and was, at the same time, considered to be quintessentially German in character. Widely esteemed for the virtuosity and dark symbolism of his graphic cycles, including A Glove (1881), A Love (1887) and On Death Part I (1889), he soon dedicated himself to monumental history paintings and grand sculptural monuments – most notably Christ on Olympus (1897), which Ludwig Hevesi triumphantly called a “highly modern act of genius” – and his famous 1902 Beethoven (fig. 20, cat. 21).55 The Beethoven was conceived during a stay in Paris in 1885–86, and realized over the following years in coloured marble, jasper, ivory and bronze – a sort of modern restitution of the colossal cult statue of Zeus in ivory and gold with which Phidias had once adorned the temple in Olympia.56 In 1902 its spectacular presentation in the Vienna Secession, enshrined by Josef Hoffmann’s architecture and Gustav Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze, consecrated Klinger’s statue immediately as a paragon of modern German art. Much like Rodin’s Thinker, the Beethoven was seen as a universal representation of heroic genius. The city of Leipzig acquired it that year for an exceptional 250,000 Reichsmark and planned a dedicated addition to the museum for it.

While his contemporaries saw Klinger mostly as a Nietzschean artist, he personally emphasized the importance of Schopenhauer, rather than Nietzsche, to his world view.57 His etching series Brahms Fantasies (1894) and On Death II (1898) and such compositions as Abduction of Prometheus, Prometheus Freed (fig. 21), Integer Vitae, And Yet (fig. 22) and To the Beauty seem to be infused with Nietzsche’s vitalistic philosophy and absorb motifs of his mythology. Klinger was certainly familiar with Nietzsche’s writings, particularly the Zarathustra, and was a close friend of the most influential early propagator of Nietzsche’s critique of modern culture,

28

Fig. 23. Max Klinger (1857–1920), Bust of Nietzsche, 1902, bronze; 50 cm high. Private collection.

Fig. 24. Max Klinger (1857–1920), Bust of Nietzsche, 1903, marble; 63 cm high. The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (N.Sk-2240).

Georg Brandes, whom he later portrayed several times. If the prominent eagle accompanying Beethoven was an obvious reference to Phidias’ statue of Zeus at Olympia, for many contemporaries he would naturally transform into the faithful attendant of Zarathustra’s solitude. Elsa Asenijeff, Klinger’s companion and muse, envisioned the eagle in such Zarathustrian terms: A Rock! High up, because it seems to reflect the colours of thunder clouds. The eagle, dominator of the loftiest heights, is hardly able to hook his claws on it. Above stands a throne of bronze, the bronze of our age. A throne of ideas. Here Beethoven is seated in a pose full of thoughts. His body, leaning forward in thought, seems to find support in his powerfully clinched fist. His eye seems to be dreaming into distance, where he finds his own inner being. It is not Beethoven the man anymore, but an enthroned genius beyond time.58

Paul Kühn was even more explicit; in his publication on the Nietzsche Archive he described Böcklin and Klinger as representatives of a new Nietzschean type of artist, and Klinger’s Beethoven as “embodiment of the superhuman” and “the most glorious, joyful, artistic affirmation of Nietzsche’s Zarathustrian worship.”59 When Pan approached Klinger in 1897 to illustrate Nietzsche’s parable Der Riese, he declined and Ernst Moritz Geyger was finally commissioned to produce the etching (cat. 17). Nevertheless, immediately following Geyger’s etching, a reproduction of Klinger’s Philosopher from the series On Death II was printed. Such association was even more explicit when in the second issue of the second year of Pan, 1896– 97, a series of Nietzsche poems, Aus den Sprüchen Zarathustras [“From Zarathustra’s Proverbs”], was framed with two famous Klinger etchings, Remembrance and Prometheus Freed. The first

29

was published full page immediately before, the second was reproduced at the end of the poems, both presenting obvious thematic links to them.60 Förster-Nietzsche had invited Klinger to Weimar in 1899 to draw him closer to the Nietzsche Archive, but the artist did not find his way to Villa Silberblick before Nietzsche’s death in the summer 1900.61 Klinger was in Paris, preparing the casting of the bronze throne for his Beethoven, when he received notice of Nietzsche’s passing and thus had to decline the request to take his death mask. On 27 August he sent a note of condolence to Förster-Nietzsche, underlining his veneration for the philosopher: It has long been my heartfelt wish to see the visage of the admired and now deceased philosopher. Unfortunately, my wish has always been frustrated by unforeseen occurrences. Indeed, I always had the hope of being able to record the likeness of the living Nietzsche for myself and others, and now I am not even able to fulfil the last and bitter tribute you have asked of me … Please allow me to express my sincere condolences. But what are words, when we owe so infinite things: worlds of new thinking, new joy of life and a wonderful new language!62

The death mask was finally taken by Curt Stoeving, but Klinger asked Förster-Nietzsche for a plaster cast and alluded to his desire to model Nietzsche’s likeness. In a letter to his friend, collector Alexander Hummel on 25 September 1901, he described his deep-felt impressions: Dear Mr. Hummel, you should see the Nietzsche mask! For days I was shaken after first seeing it. And even now, as soon as I look at it, Fig. 25. Max Klinger (1857–1920), Herm of Nietzsche, 1905, marble, 238.5 cm. Assembly Hall, Nietzsche Archive, Weimar. Bildarchiv Foto Marburg.

I am for hours under its spell. A face of such spiritual agony, without any deformation or wrinkles, only the deepest expression of painful resignation. Since I have seen the mask I cannot believe in his amentia anymore.63

In 1902 Kessler officially commissioned Klinger to execute, for 12,000 Reichsmark, a monumental herm in Parian marble for the assembly hall of the Nietzsche Archive. The project went through numerous well-documented stages, and the progressive heroic idealization has been analyzed in detail by Hansdieter Erbsmehl.64 In Paris Klinger asked his founder Pierre Bingen to cast the death mask in bronze (cat. 22). Two impressive busts, now in a private collection (fig. 23) and Leipzig (cat. 24), followed showing a more naturalistic, almost expressionistic handling, and were considered by Klinger himself as preliminary.

Work on the marble was delayed, in part because of difficulties procuring a suitable marble

30

block, but also because Klinger had many other obligations. In 1903 a provisional marble bust, later sold to a Russian Nietzsche admirer and today in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg (fig. 24), was installed. It was not until 1905 that the marble herm took its place as the central cult image in the newly refurbished Nietzsche Archive (fig. 25), theatrically placed in front of a tinted glass window at the rear end of the assembly hall. The 1903 marble bust was reproduced in bronze by the Gladenbeck foundry in Berlin-Friedrichshagen and marketed in three different sizes: 63 cm, 38 cm and 22 cm in height. Only three copies of the largest bronze were cast and offered for sale at 1000 Reichsmark, which included a polished black base, bringing the monument to a total height of 230 cm. These bronzes are now preserved in the Museum Wiesbaden, in the Städel Museum in Frankfurt and in the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa (cat. 25).

Universally admired, Klinger’s portraits in marble and bronze were frequently reproduced in contemporary publications and soon dominated the Nietzschean Iconographia. The artist never considered an appointment in Weimar and preferred his independence, but with his marble herm for the Nietzsche Archive and his close association with Kessler, Förster-Nietzsche and Van de Velde he was, nonetheless, adopted as central figure of the New Weimar. In 1903 Kessler opened his series of exhibitions at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe tactically with a monographic show on the Leipzig master (fig. 26), including the first bronze bust of Nietzsche – a strategic choice meant to prepare the grounds for the more controversial exhibitions, mostly dedicated to French art, to follow. When the most important German secessionist artists gathered in Weimar for the founding of the Deutscher Künstlerbund in December of that year, Klinger was elected vice-president alongside Kessler, Max Liebermann and Fritz von Uhde.

Edvard Munch In 1892 the young and still little-known Edvard Munch, to the surprise of most, was invited to exhibit at the Verein Berliner Künstler [Association of Berlin Artists].65 The exhibition, which included no fewer than fifty-five works, opened on 5 November 1892, but was closed one week later at the insistence of Anton von Werner and his traditionalist allies within the association. The so-called Munch affair was widely covered in the contemporary press and provoked the eruption of smouldering conflicts between the old guard and a younger generation of artists. In protest, the latter immediately founded the Freie Berliner Künstlervereinigung [Free Berlin Artists Association] and ultimately, in 1898, the Berlin Secession. The affair worked both as catalyst for the emancipation of modern art and as a formidable promotional tool

Fig. 26. Grand Duke Wilhelm Ernst and his wife, Caroline, at the opening of the Klinger exhibition at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Weimar, 1903.

Klassik Stiftung Weimar. Photograph by Louis Held.

31

was published full page immediately before, the second was reproduced at the end of the poems, both presenting obvious thematic links to them.60 Förster-Nietzsche had invited Klinger to Weimar in 1899 to draw him closer to the Nietzsche Archive, but the artist did not find his way to Villa Silberblick before Nietzsche’s death in the summer 1900.61 Klinger was in Paris, preparing the casting of the bronze throne for his Beethoven, when he received notice of Nietzsche’s passing and thus had to decline the request to take his death mask. On 27 August he sent a note of condolence to Förster-Nietzsche, underlining his veneration for the philosopher: It has long been my heartfelt wish to see the visage of the admired and now deceased philosopher. Unfortunately, my wish has always been frustrated by unforeseen occurrences. Indeed, I always had the hope of being able to record the likeness of the living Nietzsche for myself and others, and now I am not even able to fulfil the last and bitter tribute you have asked of me … Please allow me to express my sincere condolences. But what are words, when we owe so infinite things: worlds of new thinking, new joy of life and a wonderful new language!62

The death mask was finally taken by Curt Stoeving, but Klinger asked Förster-Nietzsche for a plaster cast and alluded to his desire to model Nietzsche’s likeness. In a letter to his friend, collector Alexander Hummel on 25 September 1901, he described his deep-felt impressions: Dear Mr. Hummel, you should see the Nietzsche mask! For days I was shaken after first seeing it. And even now, as soon as I look at it, Fig. 25. Max Klinger (1857–1920), Herm of Nietzsche, 1905, marble, 238.5 cm. Assembly Hall, Nietzsche Archive, Weimar. Bildarchiv Foto Marburg.

I am for hours under its spell. A face of such spiritual agony, without any deformation or wrinkles, only the deepest expression of painful resignation. Since I have seen the mask I cannot believe in his amentia anymore.63

In 1902 Kessler officially commissioned Klinger to execute, for 12,000 Reichsmark, a monumental herm in Parian marble for the assembly hall of the Nietzsche Archive. The project went through numerous well-documented stages, and the progressive heroic idealization has been analyzed in detail by Hansdieter Erbsmehl.64 In Paris Klinger asked his founder Pierre Bingen to cast the death mask in bronze (cat. 22). Two impressive busts, now in a private collection (fig. 23) and Leipzig (cat. 24), followed showing a more naturalistic, almost expressionistic handling, and were considered by Klinger himself as preliminary.

Work on the marble was delayed, in part because of difficulties procuring a suitable marble

30

block, but also because Klinger had many other obligations. In 1903 a provisional marble bust, later sold to a Russian Nietzsche admirer and today in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg (fig. 24), was installed. It was not until 1905 that the marble herm took its place as the central cult image in the newly refurbished Nietzsche Archive (fig. 25), theatrically placed in front of a tinted glass window at the rear end of the assembly hall. The 1903 marble bust was reproduced in bronze by the Gladenbeck foundry in Berlin-Friedrichshagen and marketed in three different sizes: 63 cm, 38 cm and 22 cm in height. Only three copies of the largest bronze were cast and offered for sale at 1000 Reichsmark, which included a polished black base, bringing the monument to a total height of 230 cm. These bronzes are now preserved in the Museum Wiesbaden, in the Städel Museum in Frankfurt and in the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa (cat. 25).

Universally admired, Klinger’s portraits in marble and bronze were frequently reproduced in contemporary publications and soon dominated the Nietzschean Iconographia. The artist never considered an appointment in Weimar and preferred his independence, but with his marble herm for the Nietzsche Archive and his close association with Kessler, Förster-Nietzsche and Van de Velde he was, nonetheless, adopted as central figure of the New Weimar. In 1903 Kessler opened his series of exhibitions at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe tactically with a monographic show on the Leipzig master (fig. 26), including the first bronze bust of Nietzsche – a strategic choice meant to prepare the grounds for the more controversial exhibitions, mostly dedicated to French art, to follow. When the most important German secessionist artists gathered in Weimar for the founding of the Deutscher Künstlerbund in December of that year, Klinger was elected vice-president alongside Kessler, Max Liebermann and Fritz von Uhde.

Edvard Munch In 1892 the young and still little-known Edvard Munch, to the surprise of most, was invited to exhibit at the Verein Berliner Künstler [Association of Berlin Artists].65 The exhibition, which included no fewer than fifty-five works, opened on 5 November 1892, but was closed one week later at the insistence of Anton von Werner and his traditionalist allies within the association. The so-called Munch affair was widely covered in the contemporary press and provoked the eruption of smouldering conflicts between the old guard and a younger generation of artists. In protest, the latter immediately founded the Freie Berliner Künstlervereinigung [Free Berlin Artists Association] and ultimately, in 1898, the Berlin Secession. The affair worked both as catalyst for the emancipation of modern art and as a formidable promotional tool

Fig. 26. Grand Duke Wilhelm Ernst and his wife, Caroline, at the opening of the Klinger exhibition at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Weimar, 1903.

Klassik Stiftung Weimar. Photograph by Louis Held.

31

a comparative study of the personalities of Chopin and Nietzsche. In 1894 the Polish writer had been one of the founders of Pan, and in his early publications on Munch, proposed a Nietzschean reading of his art that fortified the painter’s own Nietzschean sense of self – an identification which is dramatically expressed in his 1897 Self Portrait with Lyre (cat. 26). The artist would return to Nietzsche’s writings time and again, would identify with the ailing philosopher and his tragic fate, and occasionally adapt his themes and motifs, the most impressive example being the monumental canvases for the Aula of the University of Oslo (cat. 29).67 In Berlin he also met Count Kessler, the restless impresario of Pan, who later invited him to Weimar and to the Nietzsche Archive. In 1904 Munch executed a half-length portrait of Kessler in Weimar (fig. 27) and was introduced to Förster-Nietzsche and the Nietzsche Archive. The portrait is now in a private collection, while a coloured sketch is preserved in the Weimar Kunstsammlungen.68 For the next three years the artist spent

Fig. 27. Edvard Munch (1863–1944), Count Harry Kessler, 1904, oil on canvas, 86 × 75 cm. Private collection.

Fig. 28. Edvard Munch (1863–1944), Friedrich Nietzsche, 1905–06,charcoal and pastel on vellum, 200 × 130 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo (Inv. T 2555).

Fig. 29. Edvard Munch (1863–1944), Friedrich Nietzsche, 1906, oil on canvas, 201 × 160 cm.

Thielska Galleriet, Stockholm.

for Munch, as he would soon recognize himself. Between 1892 and 1907 the painter lived mainly in Germany, and German collectors, art dealers, critics and museum directors would remain essential to his international career even later, as evidenced by the Sonderbundausstellung in Cologne in 1912 and the retrospective exhibition at the Nationalgalerie in Berlin in 1927.

Munch had discovered Nietzsche and his philosophy in Oslo (then Kristiania) through the Kristiania Bohème, a circle of artists and writers whose members included the anarchist writer Hans Jaeger and the painter Christian Krogh.66 During his Berlin years Munch was part of the artistic circle “Zum schwarzen Ferkel,” which united such Scandinavian writers, critics and artists as August Strindberg, Christian Krogh, Ola Hansson and Hendrik Ibsen. It also included eminent German critics and writers such as Julius Meier-Graefe, Franz Servaes, Otto Julius Bierbaum and Richard Dehmel, and two of the most important early propagators of Nietzsche, Georg Brandes and Stanislaw Przybyszewski. Brandes had given the first university lectures on Nietzsche in Copenhagen in 1888 and published these under the title Aristokratischer Radicalismus. Eine Abhandlung über Friedrich Nietzsche [“Aristocratic Radicalism: A Treatise on Friedrich Nietzsche”] in 1889. Przybyszewski’s Friedrich Nietzsche.

Seine Persönlichkeit und sein System [“Friedrich Nietzsche: His Personality and his System”] appeared the same year followed by his Zur Psychologie des Individuums in 1892, which included

32

33

a comparative study of the personalities of Chopin and Nietzsche. In 1894 the Polish writer had been one of the founders of Pan, and in his early publications on Munch, proposed a Nietzschean reading of his art that fortified the painter’s own Nietzschean sense of self – an identification which is dramatically expressed in his 1897 Self Portrait with Lyre (cat. 26). The artist would return to Nietzsche’s writings time and again, would identify with the ailing philosopher and his tragic fate, and occasionally adapt his themes and motifs, the most impressive example being the monumental canvases for the Aula of the University of Oslo (cat. 29).67 In Berlin he also met Count Kessler, the restless impresario of Pan, who later invited him to Weimar and to the Nietzsche Archive. In 1904 Munch executed a half-length portrait of Kessler in Weimar (fig. 27) and was introduced to Förster-Nietzsche and the Nietzsche Archive. The portrait is now in a private collection, while a coloured sketch is preserved in the Weimar Kunstsammlungen.68 For the next three years the artist spent

Fig. 27. Edvard Munch (1863–1944), Count Harry Kessler, 1904, oil on canvas, 86 × 75 cm. Private collection.

Fig. 28. Edvard Munch (1863–1944), Friedrich Nietzsche, 1905–06,charcoal and pastel on vellum, 200 × 130 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo (Inv. T 2555).

Fig. 29. Edvard Munch (1863–1944), Friedrich Nietzsche, 1906, oil on canvas, 201 × 160 cm.

Thielska Galleriet, Stockholm.

for Munch, as he would soon recognize himself. Between 1892 and 1907 the painter lived mainly in Germany, and German collectors, art dealers, critics and museum directors would remain essential to his international career even later, as evidenced by the Sonderbundausstellung in Cologne in 1912 and the retrospective exhibition at the Nationalgalerie in Berlin in 1927.

Munch had discovered Nietzsche and his philosophy in Oslo (then Kristiania) through the Kristiania Bohème, a circle of artists and writers whose members included the anarchist writer Hans Jaeger and the painter Christian Krogh.66 During his Berlin years Munch was part of the artistic circle “Zum schwarzen Ferkel,” which united such Scandinavian writers, critics and artists as August Strindberg, Christian Krogh, Ola Hansson and Hendrik Ibsen. It also included eminent German critics and writers such as Julius Meier-Graefe, Franz Servaes, Otto Julius Bierbaum and Richard Dehmel, and two of the most important early propagators of Nietzsche, Georg Brandes and Stanislaw Przybyszewski. Brandes had given the first university lectures on Nietzsche in Copenhagen in 1888 and published these under the title Aristokratischer Radicalismus. Eine Abhandlung über Friedrich Nietzsche [“Aristocratic Radicalism: A Treatise on Friedrich Nietzsche”] in 1889. Przybyszewski’s Friedrich Nietzsche.

Seine Persönlichkeit und sein System [“Friedrich Nietzsche: His Personality and his System”] appeared the same year followed by his Zur Psychologie des Individuums in 1892, which included

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