More Art

At the Städel Art Museum in Frankfurt, the older art (1300 to 1800) is located on the top floor.  On the next floor down is art from the 19th and 20th centuries.  (On the ground floor is contemporary art, but that was not of interest to me.  Besides, after covering two floors, "museum fatigue" was setting in.)

Logically there is a great number of works from German painters.  I am not familiar with most of them.  However there are also works representing many of the well-known names of European art.

Here are a few...

"Farmhouse in Neunen"

by Vincent Van Gogh

1885

I would have never recognized this as a Van Gogh painting.  It was done before he moved to France.

"Landscape - Road with Trees in Rocky Mountains"

by Paul Cezanne

1870

"A Game of Croquet"

by Edouard Manet 

1873

"After the Luncheon"

by August Renoir

1879

"Houses on the Bank of the River Zaan"

by Claude Monet

1871

"Musicians in the Orchestra"

by Edgar Degas

"Portrait of Therese Karl"

by Fritz von Uhde

1890

There is a sad story about this painting that is told on the plaque next to it.  The painting was purchased by a wealthy Jewish art collector, Gustav Rüdenberg.  He was forced to sell the  paintings in his collection due to the economic restrictions on Jews under the Nazi regime.  Eventually he and his wife were relocated to the Jewish ghetto and then later murdered.  This painting was returned to his heirs in 2022, and they donated it to the Städel Museum.

"Jealousy"

by Edvard Munch

1913

Most everyone is familiar with Munch's famous painting "The Scream", but this is the first time that I had seen anything else by the Norwegian painter.

"Fishbone Forest"

by Paul Klee

1927

Klee was born in Switzerland, but spent much of his life and did most of his painting in Germany.  The Nazis considered his art "degenerate", and he was fired from his position as a teacher at the Düsseldorf Academy.  He returned to his native Switzerland 1935 and died there five years later.

"The Synagogue in Frankfurt"

by Max Beckman

1919

Beckman was also branded a "degenerate" artist by the Nazis, and he was dismissed from his teaching position at the Frankfurt Art School.  In 1937 he fled to the Netherlands, and tried unsuccessfully to get a visa to the United States.  When the Germans invaded the Netherlands, they attempted to draft him even though he was a sixty year old with a heart condition.  After the war, he was finally allowed to come to the U.S., and he lived there until his death in 1960.