The Forgotten Art of Max Liebermann

Abstract

Were it not for Germany's Realists and Secessionists, there would be nothing to fill the gap between the generations of Arnold Boecklin and Emil Nolde, between Romanticism and Expressionism. Oddly, German art has no equivalent to the French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. It is incorrect to speak of Max Liebermann and his fellow-Secessionists as “German Impressionists,” though this is done frequently by historians. The Spectrum Palette was not used by Max Liebermann and his associates who have in common with the French Luminists only plain air painting which practice after all was pioneered by the Barbizon School. Misunderstanding has often led writers to deal unfairly with the German school of the end of the 19th century, and, in particular, with its chef d'ecole. Werner Haftmann is, perhaps, Liebermann's harshest critic. In Painting in the Twentieth Century, he admits that Liebermann, as well as his friends Slevogt and Corinth, were “excellent painters,” but he also charges that they were “insen...