Carl Einstein

Die Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts

The German art historian and critic Carl Einstein (1885-1940) was at the forefront of the modernist movement that defined the twentieth century. One of the most prolific and brilliant early commentators on cubism, he was also among the first authors to assess African sculpture as art. Yet his writings remain relatively little known in the Anglophone world. With A Mythology of Forms, the first representative collection of Einstein’s art theory and criticism to appear in English translation, Charles W. Haxthausen fills this gap. Spanning three decades, it assembles the most important of Einstein’s writings on the art that was central to his critical project—on cubism, surrealism, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Paul Klee, and includes the full texts of his two pathbreaking books on African art, Negro Sculpture (1915) and African Sculpture (1921). With fourteen texts by Einstein, each presented with extensive commentary, A Mythology of Forms will bring a pivotal voice in the history of modern art into English.

Selected Writings on Art

A Mythology of Forms

Bebuquin o i dilettanti del miracolo

Rolf-Peter Baacke

Carl Einstein: Zwischen Bebuquin und Negerplastik

Klaus H. Kiefer

Mit Kommentar und Nachwort

„Carl Einsteins vielleicht wichtigstes Werk – inspiriert von Mallarmé und Baudelaire mit dem erklärten Ziel, die „Kausalität zu beschämen“ inspirierte seinerseits wiederum Gottfried Benn und den Dadaisten Hugo Ball.“ Redaktion Gröls-Verlag (Edition Werke der Weltliteratur)

Die Dilettanten des Wunders oder die billige Erstarrnis - Gebundene Ausgabe

Bebuquin

ein Roman

Bebuquin oder die Dilettanten des Wunders

Buch + Hörbuch

Nos encontramos ante la gran novela que alumbró el nacimiento y constitución de las Vanguardias del siglo xx, de los ismos que socavaron las convenciones del arte burgués, pero Bebuquin también es una alegoría más profunda del individuo moderno que descubre su libertad como un regalo envenenado. De esta novela, que se convirtió en el libro de cabecera de los expresionistas, Gottfried Benn dijo que "contribuyó a constituir su propia época: la de principios del siglo xx" y, con su particular "recherche de l'absolu, puso radicalmente en solfa todo el unitario colorido y sentir de la literatura alemana desde Goethe hasta George y Hofmannsthal". Con su agria antisentimentalidad, su iconoclastia, su rechazo de las convenciones narrativas y la iniciativa de convertir el torrente psicológico de Bebuquin y su entorno en el legítimo epos de esta novela, Carl Einstein da voz a algo tan contemporáneo como las oscilaciones y las dudas a la hora de percibir la realidad, así como a la crítica de los métodos heredados, que sólo han envilecido y esclavizado al hombre. "Señor, tú que nos diste el trabajo, dispénsame de él, de manera que pueda vislumbrar toda la posible inmensidad en lugar de dar realización a una pequeña medida."

O los diletantes del milagro

Carl Einstein: Bebuquin oder Die Dilettanten des Wunders Geschrieben zwischen 1906 und 1909. Erstdruck: Verlag der Wochenschrift »Die Aktion«, Franz Pfemfert, Berlin-Wilmersdorf, 1912. André Gide gewidmet. Neuausgabe. Herausgegeben von Karl-Maria Guth. Berlin 2016. Umschlaggestaltung von Thomas Schultz-Overhage unter Verwendung des Bildes: Roger de La Fresnaye, Sitzender Mann, 1914. Gesetzt aus der Minion Pro, 11 pt.

oder Die Dilettanten des Wunders

Bebuquin is the only novel of Carl Einstein, 'prophet of the avant-garde' and arguably the most influential art critic of the early 20th century. An experimental tour de force exploding all narrative conventions it is indispendable to understanding the development of literary Expressionism, Dada and Surrealism. With an introduction and chronology

Or the Dilettantes of the Miracle

Or, The Dilettantes of Wonder

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía

Uwe Fleckner

Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid)

The art critic and historian Carl Einstein was one of the most important and multifaceted personalities of the 20th-century artistic avant-garde. His books, articles and essays were fundamental pieces for the critical study of the avant-garde movements; in them he introduced the West to African art and ratified Cubism as a movement in its own right. His intellectual oeuvre, rediscovered in recent decades, is now paid tribute at the MNCARS. This is the first international exhibition to offer a visual description of the work of Einstein, a key figure in visual arts as well as literature, theatre, film and political action. The Invention of the 20th Century shows significant works by the most important artists of the avant-garde movements, whom Einstein knew and on whose careers he reflected and wrote. The one hundred and twenty pieces on display are signed by names like Braque, Dal, Grosz, Lger, Mir, Picasso, Rousseau, Paul Klee and Otto Dix, to name a few.

Carl Einstein and the avant-gardes : 12 November 2008-16 February 2009 : Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia

The invention of the 20th century

Negro Sculpture (1915) was the first critical response to African sculpture, challenging prejudices and misconceptions around this subject. It quickly became a crucial text for the European avant-garde and today remains indispensable to understanding the shift in discussion towards non-European art taking place at the time.

Negro Sculpture

Jean Paulhan

Karen K. Butler

Renée Maurer

Patricia Favero

Eric Trudel

This examination of Braque's career features exquisite reproductions and incisive historical and aesthetic investigations of his work leading up to and during World War II. This book offers the first detailed examination of Braque's experiments with still lifes and interiors during a significant, though overlooked, time in his career. One of the leading founders of Cubism, Braque employed the genre of the still life to conduct a lifelong investigation into the nature of perception through the tactile and transitory world of everyday objects. Examining a transitional time between Braque's early Cubist works and his late grand series, this catalog considers his paintings within the cultural and political context of Europe at this time. Reproduced in vivid color, Braque's paintings are accompanied by scholarly essays that explore the rise of Braque's popularity in the US, including his first major retrospective in America, and the reception of his work of the early 1930s and 1940s by German and French critics, as well as a behind-the-scenes look at the materials and process employed by the artist as illuminated by an intensive conservation study of select important works.

Georges Braque and the Cubist Still Life 1928-1945

David Quigley

In this intellectual biography an epoch is portrayed: the American writer David Quigley maps out the stages and positions of the radical early twentieth-century German writer and art historian Carl Einstein, who posited political, philosophical and aesthetic arguments for a "new" art as the basis for a "new" society.

A Defense of the Real

Gesammelte Werke

Werke

1908-1918. Bd. 2. 1919-1928

Carl Einstein (26. April 1885 bis 5. Juli 1940) war ein deutscher Kunsthistoriker und Schriftsteller. Der Roman "Bebuquin oder die Dilettanten des Wunders" wurde bei seiner Veröffentlichung 1912 als eine philosophisch-literarische Sensation gefeiert.

Carl Einstein

Books

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