Читать книгу Why Art Criticism? A Reader - Группа авторов - Страница 16
Оглавлениеfrom Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung, April 12, 1905
“The principal reasons that led me to take back the ceiling paintings ordered by the Education Ministry”—explained Gustav Klimt to me—“are not to be sought in any displeasure that may have been elicited in me by the attacks from various parties. These impacted very little upon me at the time and I did not lose my joy at the commission. I am very much impervious to any kinds of attacks. But I am rather more susceptible in those moments where I feel my commissioner is not satisfied with my work. And this is precisely the case with the ceiling paintings. The Minister has in all his attacks only ever maintained legal advocacy of his point of view, with the artistic moments, despite being of prime importance here, being touched upon only in the most cautious manner; rather than any kind of defence one could in fact observe a rejection of the artistic qualities. Via countless hints, the Ministry led me to understand that I may have become an embarrassment for that party. There are then no circumstances more embarrassing for an artist—I stretch this term to its limits, of course—than to create works for a commissioner who is not fully on side with the artist in both heart and mind, and to accept money from him in return. This is something to which I can in no way resolve myself and I had already sought for all possible means to free myself from these circumstances, which I feel to be entirely humiliating in respect to any true artistry. As long as eight years ago, the same feeling drove me to act in this way. This was already so when my sketches of the ceiling paintings were presented to the Art Commission. The following was requested of me at the time: Philosophy should be set to a darker tone; Jurisprudence should be restricted to ‘calmer lines’; and for Medicine, the unclothed female figure must be either painted over with a man, or the lady should be given clothing. I wished at that moment to withdraw immediately and it was only via the arbitration of Baron Weckbecker in the Education Ministry, who drafted a very reasonable contract permitting me full liberty as an artist, that I permitted myself to set about my work.
“The Klimt Affair,” Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung, April 12, 1905
Since the unfortunate ‘state commission,’ it has become custom in Vienna to hold Minister v. Hartel responsible for each one of my other works. Bit by bit, the Minister of Education seems to have genuinely formed the impression that he bears such responsibility. I am thus subject to unprecedented levels of interrogation at many exhibitions. At my large oeuvre exhibition, for example, I was dissuaded from exhibiting a painting that aroused ‘fear.’ I did so as I wished to avoid any inconvenience for the association. I would have vouched for my work, however. In Düsseldorf, where our Austrian exhibition was an official one, the Education Ministry urged the removal of Goldfisch prior to the opening, as the German Crown Prince, who was set to perform the opening, may have been shocked. This did not happen in the end, but you see what is possible. From the same fearful feeling sprang the hard rejection of the exhibition project the Secession had designed for St. Louis. No, I have always and everywhere been a terrible embarrassment to the Minister and, by the step I am now taking, I am now once and for all relieving him of the bizarre protectorship that has grown to watch over me. I will likewise never, and certainly not under this Ministry, be in an official exhibition unless my friends compel me to do so. Enough of censorship. I will take the matter into my own hands. I wish to extricate myself. I wish to get back to freedom, away from all these unedifying absurdities that hinder my work. I reject any kind of state support. I renounce it all.
I declare that I have a right to paintings. I have been told all too often that the paintings would not be put in their proper place as ceiling paintings. Via the fact of the ten pendentive paintings that had been ordered from me the previous year having been transferred by mutual agreement to Matsch for the same festival hall and the Education Ministry taking back the advance sum I had been given for them, the coherence of the commission granted to me was ripped apart. The paintings would be exhibited under quite different conditions to those for which I created them. Even in the face of the Ministry’s bizarre declarations, they are not yet to be regarded as finished, as they are absolutely not in harmony with one another and it is only possible for an artist to complete ceiling paintings once they have been installed in place. I am also protected by a passage in the contract which explicitly states: “Should it for any reason be not possible for one of the artists to deliver the work, another must take over part of the commission.” Just such a case has now occurred. I am not in a position to deliver works that do not meet with the commissioner’s expectations, will return the money, and retain the images. I cannot be dependent on somebody against whom I must fight.
But all that I have here said to you is of lesser importance. The principal issue is that I wish to make a stand against the manner in which, in the state of Austria, in the Education Ministry, matters of art are handled and settled. With each and every matter, it assaults real art and real artists. It is only the weak and the wrong that are protected. Many things have come to pass against serious artists; I wish not to list them here but will do so one day. I want to take up arms for them, create clarity for once. There must be a clear divorce. The state should not play the patron of the arts where it at best doles out charity. The state should not baselessly assume the role of dictator of the exhibition system and artist debates where its only duty should only be to act as mediator and a commercial party, leaving the artistic initiative entirely to the artists. Civil servants should not force their ways into the art schools and usurp the artists, as is happening now in the most arrogant manner, unless they at least take the strongest possible stand against such an art policy. If, as occurred at the most recent Budget Committee meeting, a speaker attacks the Secession in the most humiliating, libelous way and the Minister feels unmoved to say a single word in reply, the least that should be done is to find an artist who, by way of a single act, demonstrates that true art no longer wants to have anything to do with such authorities, with such parties. It was not the spirit of togetherness that brought this about, as the planned demonstration by the artist associations did not take place. So let the individual do it instead. It is not because I want nothing more to do with commissioners so far removed from real art and real artists that I am not handing over my paintings.
I note in passing that you can here see the response I just received from the Education Ministry. The tone of the letters is of such a nature that I am only now seeing how correct I was in tearing away each and every bond between myself and these parties. All that I have said here has been said only to inform the public and my friends about the reasons for my actions—on no account whatsoever to give account to the Ministry. I will hand over the paintings only upon use of brute force.”
