SESSION: Concepts of Nature in German Art at the Intersection of Colonialism, Lebensreform, and Evolutionary Theory

Discourses of nature and culture were central to German society and formulations of national identity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This was fuelled by the rise of the Lebensreform movement and the popularity of homoeopathy, the embrace of evolutionary theory and Social Darwinism, the founding of the German Colonial Society in 1882, the acquisition of colonies beginning in 1884, and the emergence of the anthropological discipline. These developments, however, maintained diverse, even contradictory, opinions associated with the value of nature and Naturvolk.  This session aims to explore the entangled attitudes towards nature as revealed in German art and visual culture – whether in the fine arts, illustration, photography, film, or hygiene exhibitions – during the Wilhelmine Empire and the Weimar Republic. Proposals are welcome, for example, that consider the imagery of nature-based lifestyles and race both in the metropole and the colonies for bias towards a celebration or denigration of nature within contexts such as evolutionary hierarchy, urban industrialization, Nacktkultur and health, Imperialism, or ethnography.

Proposals are encouraged with a focus on specific themes and artworks as well as frameworks of comparison and contrast.  Ideally, these papers could collectively provide resolutions of a dominant orientation within the nature-culture divide.  Indeed, the considerable literature on Lebensreform (such as books by Bernd Wedemeyer-Kolwe, Michael Hau, Avi Sharma, Chad Ross, and Kai Buchholz) and German colonialism (books and anthologies by Pascal Grosse, Susanne Zantop, Eric Ames, Michael Perraudin, and Sebastian Conrad, among others) has not explored the contradictory valuations of natural lifestyles or their implications where they are simultaneously promoted as essential to superior health and well-being in the Lebensreform movement and, in Imperialism, considered to be evidence that colonial Naturvolk, frequently deemed savages, represent the lowest level of human evolution.  Because of these differences, art that depicts similar imagery of figures in nature yields opposite meanings depending on their race and place.

Session Convenors:

Marsha Morton, Pratt Institute

Speakers:

Brian Hensley, Indiana University

Multiple Meanings of Nature in Naturheilkunde during the Lebensreform

The Naturheilkunde movement, or naturopathy, in Germany throughout the nineteenth century developed healing practices in accordance with their understanding of nature. Beginning with the lay healer Vincenz Prießnitz, who worked in Gräfenberg in Austrian Silesia, the movement focused on nature as a site of healing and on natural practices, such as hydrotherapy and vegetarianism. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the Naturheilkunde movement gained new significance in Germany with the rise of industrial modernity, but it also splintered. Naturheilkunde faced an existential crisis as it was relegated to “alternative medicine” with the rise of medicine as Naturwissenschaft.

In my presentation, I will focus on two Naturheilkundiger during the Lebensreform period: Adolf Just and Peter Simon Ziegelroth. I argue that for Just, natural healing was only possible in the physical vicinity of nature as a space, as shown in his physical depictions of nature alongside photographs and illustrations, as well as his Naturheilanstalt in Harz in his 1896 book, Jungborn. In contrast, Ziegelroth’s idea of Naturheilkunde focuses on the practices themselves, as seen through his incorporation of diagrams and drawings in his publication, the Archiv für physicalisch-diätetische Therapie in der ärztlichen Praxis from 1899.

Marsha Morton, Pratt Institute

The Entanglements of Nature and Culture in Ernst Haeckel’s Ceylonese Travel Writings

Books by the marine zoologist and Darwinist Ernst Haeckel, Wanderbilder (1905) and Indische Reisebriefe (first published in 1883), discussed and visualized his trip to Ceylon in 1881-82 in terms that reflected the Eurocentric nature-culture binary. An advocate of aspects of the Lebensreform movement, an originator of the term ecology, and a devoted admirer of tropical scenery, he nonetheless regarded the identities of the indigenous Veddas, Singhalese, and Tamil through the lens of evolutionary theory and his support for colonialism.  This talk investigates his conflicting and fluctuating attitudes towards nature, culture, and Naturvolk in his imaging of the native populationin photographs by British expats he purchased and reproduced in Wanderbilder, which convey alterity and evolutionary hierarchy from a privileged gaze, and in the text of Indische Reisebriefe, which includes racial bias. The Veddas are identified as the “lowest living members of the human race” incapable of comprehending abstract concepts, while at the same time he disparaged the influence of the “half savage” though more civilized Singhalese and Tamil as destroying the innocence and moral character of the Veddas.

Haeckel’s presentation of Ceylon is in accordance with conventions of picturesque theory that privileged aesthetics over social-political concerns and muted any signs of social injustice and the modern, industrial, or urban world.  His work will be evaluated briefly in comparison to other European visualizations and analyses of Ceylon and to related imagery in Symbolist and Expressionist paintings that reflect the values of the Lebensreform movement.

Katy Klaasmeyer, University of New South Wales

A Place Beyond Time: Max Pechstein in Palau

The female nude was a favoured motif of Künstlergruppe Brücke, an artist collective founded in Dresden in 1905. Seeking to overturn traditional academic styles, they found inspiration in Oceanic material culture displayed in German ethnographic museums; however, only two members travelled to the colonial territories, including Max Pechstein (1881-1955), who spent six months in Palau (1914-1915).

This paper will compare and contrast images of nude (European) figures in nature (Moritzburg Lakes, Germany) created by KG Brücke in 1909-1911 with images of nude (Indigenous) figures in nature (Palau) created by Pechstein after 1914. The former were made in efforts to imitate the lifestyle of Pacific Islanders, while the latter resulted from direct contact with Indigenous peoples. Not simply studies of the human form or a celebration of Lebensreform-inspired lifestyles, these images are replete with colonialist attitudes regarding race, gender and culture.

Building upon Fabian’s concept of “coevalness,” I argue that Pechstein believed he was travelling not only to a distant shore, but to a distant time, in order to witness first-hand Naturvolk in their primaeval paradise. The realities he encountered, however, including an indentured Indigenous labour force and the presence of Christian missionaries, do not factor in any way in his Palauan scenes. These artworks can be understood as colonialist fantasies, fuelled by encounters with Indigenous artefacts and lands from the perspective of privilege and power. By re-examining these celebrated modernist works through decolonial theory, I seek to decentre European narratives and elucidate future-forward practice and logics in negotiating colonial legacies.