Wilhelm Leibl: 1844-1900
Letter to Baurat U.
Wingen
Munich,
October 14, 1867
Kaulbach wants me
to paint one of his cartoons (the encounter of Maria Stuart
and Elizabeth) and to sign a contract with me for this purpose.
But I feel no desire for that. I would
rather express my own ideas and I don’t believe I could work according
to the ways and manners of someone else—I believe this
would hamper my progress to an essential degree, or even destroy
it. At the moment, I should like to paint a monk sitting at the window of his
cell and playing the violin. I should like to represent this
single figure on a considerably large scale and try to see
whether my strength is equal to the expressiveness with which
I should like to endow it. How welcome the stipend would be
now! I could do what I wanted and not what others wished. I
wouldn’t like to offend Kaulbach, but in no case would I
like to comply with his wish. I don’t want to be used. And so I
turn to you for advice. Not only I, but everyone else wishes you were among
us; I often think of you even if I anger you a little with my slow answers;
you
well know this fatal habit of mine.
NOTE:
Home today (another major snow), I learned
a little about the 19th century German realist painter Wilhelm
Liebl reading Linda Nochlin’s Realism and Tradition in Art:
1848-1900. I also viewed some of his artwork, including the self-portrait above from 1862, Leibl's 18th year. As the snow fell in buckets and sheets, and between arguments with the psychotic, potentially violent snow plower who adopted us ten days ago,
I found it elevating to compare and contrast Leibl's virile
ingenuousness, which several years later made him a favorite of Courbet, shown in this letter written as a 23 year old working artist in Munich to a mentor, with the scary, rotten, weakened pulse remarks published in today’s
Swarthmore College Daily Gazette.
Earlier this week, Swarthmore College hosted a kind of “odd
couple” co-presentation on campus by Princeton University professors Robert
George, a conservative lawyer and philosopher, and Cornel West, a
prominent political leftist and activist. The two men, who might seem to be polar, repelling figures, are friends as well as colleagues, and they decided to tour
their “opposites attract” academic dialogue to liberal arts colleges in order to promote and provoke student analysis and debate and to open closed minds. Sounds ok to me.
Swarthmore students were
vocally unreceptive to this and actively hostile to Professor
George, who is a Swarthmore alumnus and an exceedingly polite person.
One student told the Gazette: “What really bothered me is, the whole idea is that at a liberal arts college, we need to be hearing a diversity of opinion. I don’t think we should be tolerating [George’s] conservative views because
that dominant culture embeds these deep inequalities in our society. We should not be conceding to the dominant
culture by saying that the so-called “progressive left” is marginalizing the
conservative.”
Another student, who was the only named, "on-the-record" contributor to a “zine” distributed on campus to protest George’s appearance, said:
“A group of students wrote this zine in response to Swarthmore’s decision to host Robert George. We
spent the weekend writing, designing and producing this zine collectively. Those involved in the creation of this zine were not explicitly
named anywhere within it.”
There exists on college campuses today a disgusting
tendency to write and publish mean and crude literature anonymously, which goes beyond the student newspaper "comment sewers." If I were a college admissions officer interviewing students, the first thing I would ask applicants would concern their views regarding this practice.
If they answered affirmatively, i.e., that anonymous name calling was a good and laudable thing, I would
reject their application on the spot, demonstrably and irrevocably, appending my own "John Hancock" to their foreheads in ineradicable ink. This is my “litmus
test” and my protocol.
Even
Kilroy signed his name. (He was an artist. That was the point. I made this.)
Leibl planned originally to
title the 1877 painting below Latest News. He wrote to his mother: “My painting shows five peasants who
have huddled together in a small rustic room,
apparently to discuss some
matter of village politics because one of them holds in his hand a piece of paper that
looks like an old land-registry notice. They are real peasants, whom I
paint as true to nature as I can; the room is real too, because I paint the
picture while I am in it.”
Leibl’s
undated Two Hands With Walking Stick appears in the middle
position. His life proceeded basically in
accordance with the tenor of his letter.
He had professional successes and quieter
periods, but he was known for his honesty, integrity and fierce independence. I like his statement: “I paint people the way
they are, their soul is already there anyway.”
Speaking
of virile ingenuousness, a fine artistic and personal quality, There's
This (Link). Happy Valentine's Day.
