50. Wilhelm Schölermann - Freilicht!

A plein-air study. Düsseldorf 1891

The pamphlet deals with a question that has a profound impact on contemporary art: to what extent is realism in painting, and specifically in the form most clearly represented by Liebermann and Uhde, artistically justified? It is debatable whether the whole question is justified at all. The artist creates as he can and does not ask about aesthetic principles. If someone has a special disposition for the faithful, unimaginative reproduction of nature and a special eye for certain ugly aspects of it, his works will bear a corresponding imprint. Whether aesthetics then assigns such works a higher or lower rank is, of course, another matter. Momentary, fashion-dependent judgments may perhaps, for a short time, evaluate the creations of art completely differently from aesthetics. The latter must not allow itself to be swayed by this. Only those who keep their judgment free from the whims of contemporary taste and have firm principles can be considered scientifically educated aesthetes. Artists will always be in harmony with the principles of such aesthetics, even if they are not fully aware of them. But a scientific aesthetic will never go after the what, the material of the artwork, but always the how, what the artist has formed from the material. This is what Heine is aiming at when he says: "The great error is always that the critic raises the question: what should the artist do? It would be much more correct to ask: what does the artist want?" Schölermann quotes this passage on page 41, but I find that he takes it far too little to heart in the course of his remarks. Otherwise his investigation would have to focus on the question: what do modern artists want, and what can they achieve in the way they create? They want to reproduce a faithful image of nature. But the means with which the painter works are far fewer in number than those with which nature itself creates. The painter can work nothing into his picture except the projection of form onto a two-dimensional space, chiaroscuro and color. Apart from these means, what else does nature have at its disposal to produce a landscape, a person? And yet the painter must produce a similar total effect with his few means as nature does with its excess. It follows that he will have to shape the color, the contour and so on in detail differently from nature if he wants to achieve the latter in the overall impression. Reproduction of nature as a whole requires manifold deviations in detail. The author does not seem to know this basic maxim of all aesthetic considerations; therefore, his attempt appears to us to be unprincipled towards science, as a whimsical collection of aphorisms that lack the right foundation; uncharitable towards painting, judging according to preconceived opinions, not taking into account that only the selfless immersion in the creations of an artist like Uhde entitles him to a judgment.