New Objectivity - 922

Narrator (f):

One important feature of the New Objective idea of space is inaccessibility: barriers block paths; vanishing lines recede extremely abruptly into the depths; interiors are sites of claustrophobic anxieties. The opposite of this—it too a phenomenon of New Objectivity—was the unobstructed expanse in the form of a panorama. In the latter works, human beings are often confronted with their sense of being lost. Kanoldt’s peopleless paintings employ a similarly tectonic, geometric formal idiom that emphasizes the plane, treats landscape and architecture equally, and works with strong effects of shading.

In his painting San Gimignano of 1922, for example, Kanoldt depicts landscapes as conveyors of moods—his own but also moods that that have, as he sees it, precipitated onto them over the course of history. The true soul of a landscape cannot simply be painted, he says. First, it has to be sought. And then one must first tear it all down—stone by stone. It remains ambiguous, however, whether Kanoldt not only found “cold, crystal-clear beauty" in San Gimignano but also actively sought it out of himself there. Are they the ghosts of San Gimignano or his own? Listen for yourself:

Narrator (m) (Zitat):

Alexander Kanoldt. San Gimignano.

Built by corvée laborers—enslaved by tyrants—brought down by fanaticism: in broad outlines, that seems to be the history of the beautiful towers.

Anyone who wants to paint “pictures” in San Gimignano should abandon this plan from the outset—the city offers only stones instead of bread—there is nothing to “paint”—hardly any motifs, at best backdrops. It is about something else here: about the soul of the city.

Anyone who undertakes to render the latter will have to seek it first—its soul; he will not find it on the surface. He is not allowed to “paint”—he has to tear it down stone by stone and search. Only when he believes he has found it, may he begin to build the city anew on his canvas—stone by stone. But this hard work too will remain just an attempt, a fragment.

The towers are unrelenting, the city uncanny; the specter of the past crouches everywhere, following us step by step, no longer letting us out of its eyes: we feel it constantly focused on us—it ensures that we will not become happy and makes us shiver even at bright midday.

The blue sky offers no consolation—the gaze up at it has to overcome the towers, after all—and it remains helplessly caught, frightened and overpowered. Cold, they stand there, ghost-like, in all their crystal-clear beauty—even the sun is unable to free them from the haunting and give them life and warmth.

They were conceived to herald disaster, and this idea continues to work its magic through the centuries.