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Harry Meyer "Landschaft" 展

- 독일 보데 갤러리(Bode Galerie&Edition) 기획전 -

Harry Meyer_Berge

인사아트센터 5층

2009. 5. 13(수) ▶ 2009. 5. 19(화)

서울시 종로구 관훈동 188 | 02-736-1020

www.insaartcenter.com

Harry Meyer_Heide

하리 마이어에게 자연이 외적으로 가지고 있는 모습을 묘사하는 것은 무의미하다. 자연은 하리 마이어에게 이야기를 걸고, 그 이야기를 작가는 화폭에 담는다. 마이어에게 자연은 외형적으로 매우 신뢰적이기에, 그 모습을 굳이 눈에 보이는 것과 똑같이 담아낼 필요가 없다. 이러한 신뢰감을 통해 자연의 내면으로 뚫고 들어갈 수 있는 것이다. 초상화와 비유해 말하자면, 마이어는 자연의 얼굴을 보여주는 것이 아니라, 전통적인 초상화에서 보던 그 존재를 앞쪽으로 끌어내려는 것이다. 그의 그림은 관찰자에게 자연의 내적인 모습을 볼 수 있는 시각의 문을 열어주며, 인간의 삶의 기초보다 자연이 더 많은 것이라는 충고하고 있다. 보는 이에게 자연의 내적 구조와 원칙을 제시해 준다.

풍경을 담은 그림과의 신뢰는 자연과의 현실적 만남으로 서서히 만들어지는데, 그 모습이 보완되기 무섭게 하리 마이어는 화폭에 옮겨 담는다. 그의 그림은 지형적 읽기로부터 해방되었다. 그의 작품에 인간은 등장하지 않고, 전통적 개념으로 보자면 부속물은 담기지 않은 순수 풍경화이다. 그림을 따로 분리해보면 그러나 자연에 대한 인간 관계 시스템에 대한 풍경의 발전이 이전보다 더 강하고 맹렬하게 일어났음을 알 수 있다. 하리 마이어의 그림은 이제까지 풍경화가 알려주고자 했던 것보다 자연이 인간에게 더욱더 전능하고, 독립적이며, 계산할 수 없는 대상이라는 것을 느끼게 해준다. 그의 그림이 지닌 이 강렬한 힘은 그러나 지나치게 높다거나, 추상적이고, 감정적인 모습도 아니고 그렇다고 극단적이지도 뭉뚱그려진 것도 아니다. 그림의 이야기와 성향의 명확함으로부터 생겨난 것인데, 하리 마이어가 “풍경”의 의미가 아닌, “자연”의 요소를 사용했기 덕분이라 할 수 있다.

Harry Meyer_Huegel

이는 각각의 작업 대상물에도 해당된다. 하리 마이어는 여러 가지 자연 요소가 서로에게 녹아 들게 하는 일이 거의 없다. 오히려 언덕, 산, 나무, 또한 비와 같은 물리적인 요소가 내포하고 있는 각각의 모습에 초점을 둔다. 스스로 자연에 직접 들어가보면, 언덕, 구릉, 산 또는 빛의 모습을 각각 찾아내기란 쉽지 않으며, 결과적으로는 자연으로부터 전체적인 모습을 모아놓은 형태로 나타난다는 것을 알 수 있다. 묘사에 있어 단독성은 각각의 요소의 존재를 통해 상승되며, 화가와 관찰자에게 표면이라는 장애를 뛰어넘어, 깊이 놓여있는 연관성으로 이를 볼 수 있게 한다. 바로 이것이 언급했던 자연의 근원이자, 나아가 다시금 인간에게 있어 삶의 근원이 될 수 있다.

하리 마이어의 작품은 앞서가는 정신적 공허와 윤리적 붕괴에 대한 강렬한 생각, 즉 현대인을 둘러싸고 그들에게 영향을 미치는 요소를 담은 모습이다. 이러한 인간의 정신적 상황에 대한 생각을 그는 자연이라는 매개, 풍경화를 통해 나타내고 있다. 강렬한 작품의 이미지는 보는 이에게 각각의 모습이 내포하고 있는 생각을 읽게 한다. 하리 마이어의 그림은 눈 앞에서 자연이 인간의 일상에서의 사건보다 더욱더 큰 연관이 있다는 사실을말해준다.

Kaiserstrasse 32_D-90403 Nuremberg, Germany_Tel: +49-911-5109200 Fax: +49-911-5109108

Homepage: www.bode-galerie.de Email: bode@bode-galerie.de

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Harry Meyer_Land

Landscape Painting

The genesis of a genre with reference to the art of Albrecht Durer

and the contemporary position of Harry Meyer.

Landscape depiction is an art genre. It serves to familiarise man with nature by means of pictorial reproduction of an environment untouched or reshaped by human hand. Despite considerable advances made in the 15th century, the depiction of landscapes in paintings merely served to provide a background until well into the 17th century. For that reason, up to that time the term used was not landscape art but landscape depiction. Its function was to reproduce the manifestations and spatial expanse of nature as well as the light, the air and the perspective in pictorial form.

The hallmark of landscape art is its clarification of the relationship between man and nature, as a result of which it takes on a social meaning. A value-free artistic reproduction of landscape is therefore impossible. The landscape shown is characterised by man’s ideas of nature, which are based on certain traditions, and by his relationship with and aesthetic understanding of nature. These factors undergo a constant process of development that is determined by social and aesthetic differentiation. This in turn is a consequence of the productive relationship of man and nature which is defined by the transformation of virgin countryside into agricultural land by human hand. The pictorial representation of nature, i.e. landscape depiction, is based upon these intellectual and social components. As landscape depiction developed, other reasons arose for turning to nature, such as the discoveries of the Renaissance or the Romantics’ flight to nature. The genre is mostly accompanied by the idea of creating an ideal form of nature with a variety of intellectual references.In the 3rd millennium BC, Mesopotamia and Assyria were already familiar with landscapes in their own right as murals and reliefs. In Roman times, landscapes were always connected with depictions of villas and gardens. The latter usually entailed an idyllic or Arcadian concept of nature. In the Early Middle Ages, landscapes were depicted as background motifs in book illustrations. In twelfth-century Italy, depictions of gardens and villas returned, but were now associated with the traditional idea of the Garden of Eden. This continued into the High and Late Middle Ages, although the landscape always remained in the background of the picture.

Harry Meyer_Sterne

With Giotto’s creation of the illusion of depth, landscape depiction turned into a spatial experience. On the basis of this achievement, Filippo Brunelleschi in Florence developed the scientific perspective, which in turn provided Paolo Uccello and Piero della Francesca with the basis to produce the sfumato. It was these ideal concepts which made modern landscape art and landscape painting possible.

A pen-and-ink drawing by Leonardo da Vinci from the year 1473 is the first example of a landscape in its own right without staffage. Parallel to this unprecedented depiction, Giovanni Bellini in Venice produced first topographical vistas. These constitute the most progressive developments in landscape art, and in art as a whole, in the 15th century.

However, the decisive step was taken by Albrecht Durer by bringing these two lines together to create the first town views without staffage in watercolours painted around 1494/95. The new genre developed only slowly, albeit in different directions. Annibale Carracci and Adam Elsheimer in Rome developed the “ideal landscape”, a manneristic and allegorically based genre, by around 1600, while Nicolas Poussin produced the “heroic landscape” and Claude Lorrain the “idyllic landscape”. They are all austere, backdrop-like compositions in a clear light. These three forms of landscape art set the style for landscape painting in the 18th and 19th centuries. The landscapes of the 17th century were characterised by the strong light-dark contrasts of artists such as Peter Paul Rubens or Diego Velasquez. The Dutch artists specialised in landscape painting on two levels. Painters such as Jacob van Ruisdael, on the one hand, further developed the sfumato and modified the colour scale, while on the other hand a clear distinction was made between forms, such as seascapes, woodland or coastal landscapes. Here, for the first time, we see the needs of the art market being catered for. In the 18th century, particular interest grew in topographical depictions on the basis of earlier works by Albrecht Durer and Bellini, from which Bernardeo Canaletto developed his vedute, or views. However, despite the differentiation described above, the predominant form in the 17th and 18th centuries was the ideal landscape and landscape depiction itself principally served the purpose of providing a background.

Harry Meyer_Streuobstwiese

The developments in the 17th and 18th centuries were confined to France, the Netherlands and Italy. It was not until the 19th century that landscape painting experienced an exceptional upswing in Germany. For lack of a cultural centre, all the schools of art were equally influential, but Caspar David Friedrich became the principal exponent due to the fact that he relinquished the ideal landscape in favour of a form which incuded an emotional, poetic and religious or pantheistic relationship with nature. His works provided the starting point for an extensive renewal of the genre of landscape painting. Without him, Adolph von Menzel could not have directed landscape art towards a more realistic relationship with nature and outgrow Romanticism. This led to the introduction of realism into landscape art, as in the works of John Constable, for example.

The post-romantic developments paved the way for plein-air painting and for the realism of Gustave Courbet. Well aware of its origins, the impressionists turned to landscape painting in order to solve the artistic problems that concerned them. The precursors of modern art, Paul Cezanne, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, were for their part able to use these experiences to reinforce the structure of their paintings. Landscape was now abstracted from an impression of nature to a certain extent, ultimately giving rise to all the tendencies in modern art.

In spite of its increasing abstraction, landscape art has not been discarded, but has proved that with all the developments in art it has become an established genre. Contemporary landscape painting is based on a fivehundred-year-old tradition and this tradition enables it to reorder the relationship between man and nature, i.e. the starting point for any landscape art, and to pose the question as to the essence of nature itself.

It was Albrecht Durer who initially brought together the original threads of landscape art which had existed alongside each other in Italy. This provided the decisive impetus for the development of the genre in Italy and it was indeed a new development for art in Germany.

Durer’s artistic activity in Germany coincided with the transition from the Late Gothic period to the Renaissance and was influenced by the effects of the Reformation and the Peasant Wars. His great political and social interest and his deep affinity to humanistic ideas and the struggle for a better society formed the foundation upon which his ideas were based. Durer was unique in being able to bring together the traditions of German art of the entire 15th century in unprecedented variety. His works were rich and yet simple in form at the same time and thus became such a perfect expression of the endeavours of his time that it became known as the Durer period.

During his first journey to Italy (1494/95) Durer began to occupy himself with landscape. Basing his work on contemporary landscape art, he produced watercolours of town views without staffage which were actually intended only as studies. They can be considered as original works in their own right, however, as this impartial view of nature constitutes the beginning of modern landscape painting. The topographic vista was one of the main achievements of the 15th century and Durer was able to elevate this to a high point in visual art. On his return from Italy he introduced the terms “landscape” and “landscape painting” into German usage. His life-long quest for beauty in proportions and his struggle with the problems of perspective caused him to intensify his study of nature. His renewed encounters with the works of Leonardo da Vinci und Giorgione during his second journey to Italy (1505-07) contributed to this considerably.

Albrecht Durer’s artistic output was of a universal nature. His studies of natural phenomena, his interest in proportion and perspective and, last but not least, the inclusion of social or political considerations in his works testify to his high artistic pretensions.

It is here that a link can be established to the works of Harry Meyer. In his studies of nature, Albrecht Durer strove towards depiction in precise detail. For Harry Meyer, depicting the outward appearance of nature is irrelevant. He takes Durer’s endeavours one step further and focuses upon depicting nature’s inner appearance. Harry Meyer paints landscape as such in the way that a speaker speaks a language of which he or she has achieved a very good mastery. He is so familiar with landscape in its outward appearance that he does not have to see it in reality to paint it. Due to this familiarity he is able to penetrate to the essence of nature. Comparably with portrait art, Meyer does not attempt to produce a copy of the landscape, but a portrait of it which, as in a classical portrait, brings its essence to the fore. His paintings allow the beholder an insight into the essence of the landscape and indicate that nature is more than the basis of human life. They show the beholder the inner laws and the inner structure of nature and make it clear that nature too has a basis of its own.

This familiarity with the appearance of landscape is built up gradually from many real encounters with landscape. As soon as it is complete, Harry Meyer is able to transfer it into pictorial form, i.e. to paint it. In this way, his paintings have completely emancipated themselves from topographical readability.

Always devoid of people, his works are purely landscape paintings in the traditional sense that they do not serve as a background and do without any staffage. When one examines these paintings, one is confronted more acutely and perhaps more strongly than in any previous forms of landscape painting by the reference system of man and nature. Harry Meyer’s paitings convey the feeling that man is confronted by a nature that is far more powerful, independent and unpredictable than any landscape painting has hitherto sought to express. The vehement meaningfulness of his paintings is derived not from exaggeration, abstraction, emotional gesture or radical abbreviation, but from the clarity of the painting’s message and conception. It is due to this clarity that the term to describe Harry Meyer’s works is not “landscape” but rather “nature”.

This would also correspond to the subjects of the individual groups of works. Harry Meyer seldom allows several natural phenomena to merge. He focuses instead on individual phenomena, such as a hill, a mountain, a tree, or physical states such as rain, darkness or light. If one goes out into nature oneself, one seldom encounters a hill, valley, mountain or light individually. After all, it is as a collective that these phenomena form the holistic appearance of nature. The very singularity of his depictions heightens the presence of these individual elements and both the artist and the beholder are able to break through the surface, to come upon structures lying deep below and make them visible. This is the basis of nature already referred to which in turn makes it possible for it to be the basis for human life. The structures of nature can then be seen as rain falling in broad, solid shafts; as a deeply fissured and yet solid mountain; in a soaring tree or in the meeting of the sky and a broad stretch of countryside where, despite the distance, all is focused on a central point.

The tireless search for the structures of nature and the constant perfection of their depiction has already been described as the meeting point with Albrecht Durer’s axiom. The reality of the works of both artists range within the context of the human psyche. This is accompanied by a respect for man and nature which pervades both artists. Albrecht Durer’s extensive examination of the relationship between man and nature and of nature itself was closely related to the intellectual turbulence and the social and moral condition of his day. Harry Meyer’s work is characterised by an intensive reflection upon progressing intellectual emptiness and moral decline ? factors that surround and affect modern man. In his paintings he relates his thoughts on this mental situation to nature, to landscape painting. The intense message of his paintings succeeds in stimulating the beholder to reflect upon his or her own standpoint. Harry Meyer’s paintings make us aware that nature is characterised by an interplay of far greater forces than the events in everyday human life.

The various parallels in the genesis and context of their works suggest a connection between Albrecht Durer and Harry Meyer. The works of both artists are characterised by independence, by a striving for perfection and by a noticeable, profound earnestness.

하리 마이어(Harry Meyer)

1960 독일 노이마크트(Neumarkt) 출생 | 1976-79 뉘른베르크에서 수공예 견습 | 1988-93 대학에서 건축학 전공

예술가협회 Neue Gruppe 회원 | 1993- 아우크스부르크와 바인가르텐 시(市)에서 화가로 활동 중

vol. 20090513-하리 마이어(Harry Meyer)展