Art and the German Bourgeoisie: Alfred Lichtwark and Modern Painting in Hamburg, 1886-1914 (review) Art and the German Bourgeoisie: Alfred Lichtwark and Modern Painting in Hamburg, 1886-1914 (review) Mitchell Benjamin Frank University of Toronto Quarterly, Volume 74, Number 1, Winter 2004/2005, pp. 534-536 (Review) Published by University of Toronto Press DOI: For additional information about this article [ Access provided at 6 Apr 2021 02:36 GMT from Carnegie Mellon University ] https://doi.org/10.1353/utq.2005.0080 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/180554 https://doi.org/10.1353/utq.2005.0080 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/180554 534 letters in canada 2003 university of toronto quarterly, volume 74, number 1, winter 2004/5 preaching, were decidedly ambiguous when it came to asserting true gender equality, Eason nicely draws attention to similar tensions in Catherine Booth�s own writings and behaviour. Though a strong propo- nent of woman�s right to preach and of spiritual equality between the sexes, she did not challenge the prevailing construct of woman as self- denying, weak, and submissive to male headship. Notwithstanding its use of female preachers, the Army�s patriarchal structures and conventional gender expectations of woman�s role within the home led, therefore, to significant underrerpresentation of women within the higher and middle ranks, a point underscored by several helpful tables of the senior, provincial, and divisional leadership over the period 1880 to 1930. Readers may wish that this study had examined two additional issues relevant to gender relations: Salvationist material culture in revivals, especially the statements made by the provocative costume and noisy musical instruments of female preachers, and the economic circumstances of Army couples. Unlike the Booths, most were not able to employ ser- vants, and one suspects that the demands of raising a family in straitened circumstances may be at least as responsible as gender discrimination in moving married Army women from the streets into the home. Apart from overlooking these two concerns, this is a fine piece of research and analysis. Eason�s range of interest is extensive, and he skilfully weaves into his thesis such doctrinal matters as the influence of Methodism, the impact of American revivalism, the Army�s emphasis on holiness, and the move away from the sacraments. His conclusion is that the Army�s egalitarian ideals were largely shaped by a pragmatic evangelicalism, and were really more attenuated by the cultural norms of the period than has generally been recognized in Salvationist historiography. Though ably argued, this insight will not come as a surprise to readers familiar with the extensive literature on religion and gender in nineteenth-century Anglo-societies. Nevertheless, as a systematic analysis of how egalitarian concepts played themselves out in a religious denomination which consciously modelled itself on authoritarian military structures, this study reveals yet one more fascinating aspect of the complex exchange between religious forms and cultural norms in the Victorian era. (MARGUERITE VAN DIE) Carolyn Kay. Art and the German Bourgeoisie: Alfred Lichtwark and Modern Painting in Hamburg, 1886–1914 University of Toronto Press 2002. x, 166. $45.00 Carolyn Kay�s book, like the recent 2003 publications by Beth Irwin Lewis (Art for All?: The Collision of Modern Art and the Public in Late-Nineteenth- Century Germany) and Jennifer Jenkins (Provincial Modernity: Local Culture and Liberal Politics in Fin-de-Siècle Hamburg), contributes to a well-estab- chf humanities 535 university of toronto quarterly, volume 74, number 1, winter 2004/5 lished literature, dominated in English-language scholarship more by historians (Peter Paret, Robin Lenman, and others) than art historians, that examines the tensions surrounding modernist painting in Germany at the turn of the twentieth century. The prevalence of historians in this area has to do not only with the continuing francocentric view of nineteenth-century European art among art historians, but also with historians� continued interest in the relations or lack thereof between nineteenth-century German nationalism, culture, middle-class politics, and the eventual development of National Socialism. Kay�s book focuses on Alfred Lichtwark (1852–1914), a key cultural figure in Hamburg during his long tenure as director of the Kunsthalle from 1886 to 1914, when he built up an impressive collection for the museum, including works by Hamburg painters and, most controversially, French and German impressionist and post-impressionist art. As Kay explains, Lichtwark thought of himself not only as an educator for what he considered a boorish middle class in need of aesthetic education, but also as a �nationalist devoted to modern German culture� that needed to �secure a place alongside Britain and France.� Lichtwark believed that modernist painting could act as the basis for the development of a new German cultural tradition. �Only the French,� he stated, �have created great art in the nineteenth century,� and so Germans should �link up with it for the future development of German art.� Through three case studies, Kay presents Lichtwark�s attempt to promote his vision of modern German culture in the 1890s. The first examines the reception of Max Liebermann�s 1892 portrait of Hamburg Burgomaster Carl Petersen, and the second explores Lichtwark�s support for avant-garde Hamburg artists (the so-called �New Tendency� in art) in the annual exhibitions of Hamburg�s Kunstverein (Artists� Association). These two chapters investigate controversies that pitted Lichtwark and defenders of modernist painting against its detractors. The third case study, in contrast, shows Lichtwark�s success in promoting modernist art to elite members of the middle class through the Gesellschaft Hamburgischer Kunst- freunde (Hamburg�s Patrons of Fine Art), which, as Kay explains, was a �receptive forum for Lichtwark�s ideas about the transformative influence of art� and �an important ally [to Lichwark] among Hamburg�s bourgeoi- sie.� In the first two case studies, Kay relates how Lichtwark�s opponents regarded his support of modernist painting as an endorsement of decadent French artistic principles in opposition to German values and classical aesthetic standards. As one critic put it, �like an epidemic this sickness [modernist painting] spreads, also infecting circles that have up to now been healthy.� In the case of the �New Tendency,� Lichtwark�s promotion of avant-garde art was clearly hindered: his supporters on the Kunstverein committee were ousted in favour of traditionalists. Lichtwark faced a 536 letters in canada 2003 university of toronto quarterly, volume 74, number 1, winter 2004/5 similar backlash with the Liebermann commission, which was part of a series of portraits of famous Hamburg citizens by modern German painters established by Lichtwark to raise the status of Hamburg and to educate its citizens in contemporary art. As Kay demonstrates, Liebermann�s work received a hostile critical reception, because its impressionist and Frans Hals�like style did not meet public expectations. In a letter to Lichtwark, Petersen himself stated: �this is not the portrait of a Burgomaster, but of a drunken and depraved coffinbearer.� Kay rightly concludes that this antagonistic critical reaction had to do with �how critics of modernism associated impressionism with the working class and radical politics.� Her argument could have been strengthened had she discussed Hals�s renewed reputation in the nineteenth century. Leftist critics like Théophile Thoré (also known as William Bürger) regarded Hals no longer as a depraved drunkard (as his earlier biographers saw him and as the quotation from Petersen suggests) but as a radical naturalist painter. It could be argued that Liebermann was not merely �influenced� by Hals, as Kay puts it, but was rather making reference to Hals in order to claim the importance of naturalism and the need to do away with outworn formulas of the past. Kay has persuasively demonstrated not only Lichtwark�s passionate promotion of modernist painting in the cause of German cultural progress, but also its resistance and acceptance among members of Hamburg�s middle class. Her work adds to the growing evidence of the heterogenous and complex character of the German bourgeoisie of this period. Moreover, she complicates the simplistic view that regards all supporters of avant- garde art as liberals and all its detractors as nationalist conservatives. As Kay rightly states: �It is false to assume that cultural modernism must be linked inexorably with the Left, and traditional art with conservatism and nationalism � as though these cultural and political categories are resolutely fixed.� Kay, through the clarity of her writing and her thorough archival research, has made an important contribution to late nineteenth- century German studies. (MITCHELL FRANK) David R. Jarraway. Going the Distance: Dissident Subjectivity in Modernist American Literature Louisiana State University Press. 280. US $25.95 There is something distant about David Jarraway�s rich and complicated reading of �dissident subjectivities� in modernist American literature. By combing the literary work of Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes, Frank O�Hara, and Elizabeth Bishop with a mélange of theoretical and philosophical ideas, Jarraway develops a reading protocol reliant on �distance� � a term that is at once spatial, temporal, and very aesthetic, providing a conceptual framework that opens �up a new space xxxxxxxx