„Rainer Metzger” – książki

It was the decade of daring Expressionist canvases, of brilliant book design, of the Bauhaus total work of art, of pioneering psychology, of drag balls, cabaret, Metropolis, and Marlene Dietrich`s rising star in theater and silent film. Between the paroxysms of two world wars, Berlin in the 1920s was a carpe diem cultural heyday, replete with groundbreaking art, invention, and thought. This book immerses readers in the freewheeling spirit of Berlin`s Weimar age. Through exemplary works in painting, sculpture, architecture, graphic design, photography, and film, we uncover the innovations, ideas, and precious dreams that characterized this unique cultural window. We take in the jazz bars and dance halls, the crowded kinos and flapper fashion, the advances in technology and transport, the radio towers and rumbling trams and trains, the soaring buildings, the cinematic masterworks, and the newly independent women who smoked cigarettes, wore their hair short, and earned their own money. Featured works in this vivid cultural portrait include Hannah Hoech`s The Journalists, Lotte Jacobi`s Hands on Typewriter, Otto Dix`s Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden, Peter Behrens`s project of theAlexanderplatz, and Josef von Sternberg`s The Blue Angel, starring Dietrich as cabaret performer Lola Lola. Along the way, we explore both the utopian yearnings and the more ominous economic and political realities which fueled the era`s escapist, idealistic, or reactionary masterworks. Behind the bright lights and glitter dresses, we see the inflation, factory labor, and fragile political consensus that lurked beneath this golden era and would eventually spell its savage end with the rise of National Socialism.

For Marc Chagall (1887-1985), painting was an intricate tapestry of dreams, tales, and traditions. His instantly recognizable visual language carved out a unique early 20th-century niche, often identified as one of the earliest expressions of psychic experience. Chagall`s canvases are characterized by loose brushwork, deep colors, a particular fondness for blue, and a repertoire of recurring tropes including musicians, roosters, rooftops, flowers, and floating lovers. For all their ethereal charms, his compositions were often rich and complex in their references. They wove together not only colors and forms, but also his Jewish roots with his present encounters in Paris, markers of faith with gestures of love and symbols of hope with testimonies of trauma. Across scenes of birth, love, marriage, and death, this dependable artist introduction explores the many versions of Chagall`s rich vocabulary. From visions of his native Vitebsk in modern-day Belarus to images of the Eiffel Tower, we explore the unique aesthetic of one of the most readily identifiable modern masters and one of the most influential Jewish artists of all time.