This dissertation examines how, why, and to what effect the Romantic genre of heroic landscape painting was recovered and recast in German art of the 1970s and 1980s. This study seeks to revise the narrative of this notable period in German history by examining the ways in which artists from East and West Germany's main cultural hubs---the Leipzig and Dusseldorf art academies, specifically---chose to adopt and adapt heroic landscape representation as a way of dealing with sociopolitical questions of the day. This study asserts that artists, including Jorg Immendorff, Werner Tubke, Michael von Biel, Ursula Mattheuer-Neustadt, Gunter Richter, and Michael van Ofen, selected the heroic landscape trope because they identified historic similarities with the early nineteenth century (when the genre was developed) and because of the genre's specifically German connotations. The familiar forms and icons of heroic landscape art, as adapted by these artists, helped its audience embrace a collective past and challenge contemporary hegemony during a time when both German governments were attempting to escape that 'special' history. Similarities in style and form suggest the shared nature of Germany's early nineteenth century and late twentieth century struggles with war memory, shifting gender relationships and religious morals, national division, and environmental crises, while moments of disjuncture in the appropriation of the landscape form illuminate issues specific to the 1970s and 1980s. This dissertation will revise currently-held concepts regarding postwar life and culture in both Germanies by exposing these landscape paintings as vehicles for the communication of a popular historical narrative left unspoken by the hegemonic powers of the period. This dissertation will demonstrate that these twentieth century paintings, much like their nineteenth century counterparts, helped mobilize and inform the public through their cultural critique as they acknowledged and transmitted a very different picture of life in the FRG and in the GDR than that officially propagated by the nations' respective governments, encouraging the development of private memory and action as a response to the real sociopolitical concerns of the period / acase@tulane.edu
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_24425 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Contributors | Wilkins, Catherine Josephine (Author), Otte, Marline (Thesis advisor) |
| Publisher | Tulane University |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Access requires a license to the Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest) database., Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law |
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