![]() Oil on canvas - State Museum for Art and Cultural History, Oldenburg, Germany ![]() German critic Franz Roh initially described Magic Realist paintings as "enigmas of quietude in the midst of general becoming." Unlike his Neue Sachlichkeit colleague and friend Otto Dix, Radziwill opted not for biting cultural satire but for rendering the strangeness of a rapidly changing world that encroached on traditional ways of life. Additionally, the lighting of the scene and the strange rocks that punctuate the beach seem to have fallen from another world, marking the work exemplary of Franz Radziwill's Magic Realism. Its purpose, its passengers, its destination all remain mysterious. Here, in this quiet, rather normal looking, beach scene, an airplane, which seems to lack a propeller and whose body resembles the hull of a ship, flies into the scene, perhaps about to land near the idyllic house. He often depicted this ambivalence in his paintings. He was both enamored by and reticent about the encroaching technology in this small town. While most Magic Realists avoided stinging satire and social critique of the most strident Neue Sachlichkeit artists, many explored the state of society and culture in a more nuanced way, often making commentaries about the feelings of alienation and isolation felt in the modern era.Īfter spending a couple of years in Berlin, in 1923 Radziwill settled in the town of Dangast, a coastal city on a bay off of the North Sea.By focusing on such devices, instead of fantastical or made-up elements, the artists create spaces that are more universally understood and that do not rely on specialized knowledge. While some Magic Realists use symbols and allegory, many relied on odd juxtapositions of objects, distortions of space, or hyperrealism to convey the mysteriousness of everyday life.Unlike the Surrealists, the Magic Realists did not wish to probe the unconscious, dreams, or interior states, but rather they emphasized the often-times strangeness of outward experiences. While Magic Realism is often described as "surreal," the artists themselves were careful to distinguish themselves from the avant-garde group of Surrealist painters and poets. ![]() To reinforce their classical tendencies many of used materials like egg tempera, which was popular in the early Italian Renaissance. Relying on the undistorted figure, the artists emphasized observable reality. Magic Realism was part of the trend toward classicism in the interwar years that aimed to move away from more expressive styles.Never a unified movement, artists in various countries developed the ideas and styles, creating unique versions, which still resonate with contemporary innovators of many media to this day. Magic Realism's influence spread across media, especially in literature, to become a diffuse practice in several areas around the globe. Often using exquisite detail and unusual perspective, the artists conveyed the wonder of observable reality. Initially synonymous with Neue Sachlichkeit, Magic Realism focused less on biting social critique and more on explorations of the strangeness and incongruousness of existence. The original movement emerged in the 1920s in Germany to counter the emphasis placed on individual subjectivity by earlier avant-garde artists. The merging of present and past, the invention of strange objects, the juxtaposition of unlike things, and the depiction of alienation are just a few of the ways in which Magic Realist painters evoke the mysteriousness and uncanniness of everyday reality.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |