Train­ing and Begin­nings:
1905 to 1918

From Impres­sion­ism to Pure Form

Willi Baumeis­ter’s work large­ly rep­re­sents the devel­op­ment of abstract paint­ing in Ger­many and Europe. His first works, though, still show the influ­ence of his aca­d­e­m­ic train­ing and in par­tic­u­lar the styles preva­lent at the turn of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry.

With impres­sion­is­tic and postim­pres­sion­is­tic pic­tures in 1906 to 1909 that depict views of Stuttgart and park or water scenes, Baumeis­ter first reveals French (Claude Mon­et, Camille Pis­saro) and local influ­ences (Otto Reiniger).

This sud­den­ly changed when he entered Adolf Hölzel’s class in 1909 and stayed in Paris for the first time in 1911. Like many of those he met study­ing with Adolf Hölzel – includ­ing Oskar Schlem­mer, Johannes Itten, Ida Kerkovius, and Her­mann Sten­ner – he encoun­tered new expres­sive media, the desire for abstrac­tion, and the wrestling for the auton­o­my of form and col­or.

A let­ting go of rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al nat­u­ral­ism, which Baumeis­ter saw as a soul­less stand­still through­out his life­time, char­ac­ter­ized his art from now on. He was equal­ly eager to avoid all spa­tial illu­sion. Instead, an empha­sis on sur­face planes is evi­dent in works such as Shore (1913), Drafts­man and Mod­el (1913), and Read­ing (1914).

Among the vari­ably abstract­ed fig­ure com­po­si­tions pro­duced from 1909 to 1913 are also the occa­sion­al­ly pecu­liar­ly strik­ing works from his stay in Amden in 1912–13 – an artis­tic inter­mez­zo with high­ly elon­gat­ed fig­ures that the artist often pre­sent­ed back­lit or in strong­ly con­trast­ing tones (e.g. Two Youths, 1913). Even here, though, Baumeis­ter focused atten­tion not on the fig­ure in the land­scape, but on wrestling with an excit­ing com­po­si­tion with form, col­or, and planes.

Also for­ma­tive for Baumeis­ter was his encounter with the art of Paul Cézanne, who was a fore­run­ner of his own the­o­ret­i­cal inves­ti­ga­tion of the con­trast between nat­u­ral­ism and abstrac­tion, and out of which result­ed a great num­ber of ear­ly fig­u­ra­tions with bathers. Even in the 1950s Baumeis­ter referred to Cézan­ne’s paint­ing in his teach­ing.

The Read­ers and stu­dio pic­tures as well as some of the Heads from around 1914 not only sug­gest an affin­i­ty to the work of his friend Oskar Schlem­mer, but in their lin­ear­i­ty also hint at the con­struc­tivist phase in the 1920s. A look at the years after 1919 reveals that Baumeis­ter’s call to the war front dis­turbed his devel­op­ment for near­ly four years – but only in tem­po­ral, not in artis­tic, terms.