Clarenbach, Max (1880-1952), Evening, 1909

Max Clarenbach(1880 Neuss - 1952 Cologne), Evening. Etching, 18 x 41 cm (platemark), 33.5 x 57 cm (frame), inscribed "Abend" in pencil at lower left, signed and dated "M. Clarenbach. 28.III.[19]09". Framed and mounted under glass.

- Somewhat browned and slightly foxed.

Exposé as PDF

- The depths of the visible -

The horizontally elongated etching depicts the panoramic view of a small town as seen from the other side of the river. There are gabled houses on the left and a mighty church spire on the right. The bourgeois houses and the large religious building indicate the urban character. These buildings are rendered in dark tones to emphasise the lighter row of houses in the centre of the picture, closer to the water. The chiaroscuro contrast creates two parallel planes that open up a space for the imagination of what the city could be. The imagination is stimulated by the almost entirely dark, barely recognisable buildings, while the arm of the river leading into the city further stimulates the imagination.

However, as the silhouette of the city as a whole is reflected in the water, the parallel planes are perceived as a band of houses that stretches across the entire horizontality of the etching and seems to continue beyond the borders of the picture. The reflection has almost the same intensity as the houses themselves, so that the band of buildings merges with their reflection to form the dominant formal unit of the picture. Only the parallel horizontal hatching creates the convincing impression of seeing water, demonstrating Max Clarenbach's mastery of the etching needle.

The water is completely motionless, the reflection unclouded by the slightest movement of the waves, creating a symmetry within the formal unity of the cityscape and its reflection that goes beyond the motif of a mere cityscape. A pictorial order is established that integrates everything in the picture and has a metaphysical character as a structure of order that transcends the individual things. This pictorial order is not only relevant in the pictorial world, but the picture itself reveals the order of the reality it depicts. Revealing the metaphysical order of reality in the structures of its visibility is what drives Clarenbach as an artist and motivates him to return to the same circle of motifs.

The symmetry described is at the same time inherent an asymmetry that is a reflection on art: While the real cityscape is cut off at the top of the picture, two chimneys and above all the church tower are not visible, the reflection illustrates reality in its entirety. The reflection occupies a much larger space in the picture than reality itself. Since antiquity, art has been understood primarily as a reflection of reality, but here Clarenbach makes it clear that art is not a mere appearance, which can at best be a reflection of reality, but that art has the potential to reveal reality itself.

The revealed structure of order is by no means purely formalistic; it appears at the same time as the mood of the landscape. The picture is filled with an almost sacred silence. Nothing in the picture evokes a sound, and there is complete stillness. There are no people in Clarenbach's landscape paintings to bring action into the picture. Not even we ourselves are assigned a viewing position in the picture, so that we do not become thematic subjects of action. Clarenbach also refrains from depicting technical achievements. The absence of man and technology creates an atmosphere of timelessness. Even if the specific date proves that Clarenbach is depicting something that happened before his eyes, without the date we would not be able to say which decade, or even which century, we are in. The motionless stillness, then, does not result in time being frozen in the picture, but rather in a timeless eternity that is nevertheless, as the title "Abend" (evening), added by Clarenbach himself, makes clear, a phenomenon of transition. The landscape of the stalls is about to be completely plunged into darkness, the buildings behind it only faintly discernible. The slightly darkened state of the sheet is in keeping with this transitional quality, which also lends the scene a sepia quality that underlines its timelessness. And yet the depiction is tied to a very specific time. Clarenbach dates the picture to the evening of 28 March 1909, which does not refer to the making of the etching, but to the capture of the landscape's essence in the landscape itself.

If the real landscape is thus in a state of transition, and therefore something ephemeral, art reveals its true nature in that reality, subject to the flow of phenomena, is transferred to an eternal moment, subject to a supra-temporal structure of order - revealed by art. Despite this supratemporality, the picture also shows the harbingers of night as the coming darkening of the world, which gives the picture a deeply melancholy quality, enhanced by the browning of the leaf.

It is the philosophical content and the lyrical-melancholic effect of the graphic that give it its enchanting power. Once we are immersed in the image, it literally takes a jerk to disengage from it.

This etching, so characteristic of Max Clarenbach's art, is - not least because of its dimensions - a major work in his graphic oeuvre.

Max Clarenbach by Marie-Luise Baum / CC BY-SA 4.0

About the Artist

Born into poverty and orphaned at an early age, the artistically gifted young Max Clarenbach was discovered by Andreas Achenbach and admitted to the Düsseldorf Art Academy at the age of 13.

"Completely penniless, I worked for an uncle in a cardboard factory in the evenings to pay for my studies.”

- Max Clarenbach

At the academy he studied under Arthur Kampf, among others, and in 1897 was accepted into Eugen Dücker's landscape painting class. Clarenbach's breakthrough came in 1902, when his work Der stille Tag was shown at the Düsseldorf exhibition. The painting was purchased by the Düsseldorf gallery and Clarenbach suddenly became known as an artist. The following year, 1903, he completed his academic training and, after marrying, moved to Bockum, where he had been working since 1901 in the former studio of Arthur Kampf, who had moved to the Berlin Academy.

In Bockum, Clarenbach devoted himself to the artistic study of the Lower Rhine landscape and developed his characteristic style. This style was also influenced by his stays in the Netherlands. There he studied the artists of the Hague School and had a studio in Vlissingen. On a trip to Paris he was also inspired by the Barbizon School. Thus influenced, Clarenbach turned his attention to the landscape itself, which led him to develop his own distinctive style of painting.

"Nature says everything, you just have to let it speak quietly. Every tree has something to say. It is wonderful, but very difficult to capture and reproduce what is being said.”

- Max Clarenbach

In 1908, the Clarenbachs moved into the Clarenbach House in Wittlaer, designed by Joseph Maria Olbrich for the painter, in the midst of nature.

"Because Clarenbach wanted to live permanently in and with the nature of the Lower Rhine, he had his friend Olbrich build the house here, which corresponded to his ideas of beauty and harmony, in the midst of the fields and meadows crossed by the Schwarzbach".

- Ellen Clarenbach

The stay in Paris was also a discovery of the latest French art, which had not yet been recognised in the Rhineland. In 1909 Clarenbach and his former academy friends Julius Bretz, August Deusser, Walter Ophey, Wilhelm Schmurr and the brothers Alfred and Otto Sohn-Rethel founded the Sonderbund Westdeutscher Kunstfreunde und Künstler , which lasted until 1915. Cezanne, Monet, Renoir, Rodin, Seurat, Signac, Sisley, Vuillard, van Gogh and Picasso were represented at the exhibitions. In 1910 and 1911, Kandinsky, Jawlensky, Purrmann, Kirchner and Schmidt-Rottluff joined them.

The progressive exhibitions of the Sonderbund had the effect of an attack on established art circles that would not go unrewarded. Under the editorship of the painter Carl Vinnen, a "protest of German artists" was launched against "the unpatriotic favouring of French painters". The reply, in which Clarenbach also took part, was published under the title 'Im Kampf um die Kunst'.

After this heated period in Clarenbach's life, his artistic career took a calmer course, allowing him to concentrate on his art away from the political turmoil.

In 1917 - Clarenbach had already received numerous awards - he succeeded Eugen Dücker as professor at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, a post he held until 1945.

During the dark years of Nazi rule, Clarenbach was represented at the Great German Art Exhibition at the Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich between 1938 and 1943 and, although his artistic integrity was considered questionable, he was included on the so-called Gottbegnadeten list of indispensable artists in 1944.

He formulated his artistic approach in the following words: "Few colours, few brushes. Make all shapes bold with the full brush, broad and flat, do not draw contours with the brush, that would be absolutely wrong. Each stroke has something to express, never overpaint. It requires concentration and great joy in the process".

Ultimately, it is the same circle of landscape motifs that has attracted Clarenbach throughout his artistic career.

"Bridging all the artistic and socio-political upheavals of the time, the painterly oeuvre proves to be a continuous expression of a deeply rooted relationship with nature and an enduring love of the Lower Rhine landscape.”

- Dietrich Clarenbach

Clarenbach was not unpredictable, but, in his own words, "concentrated" in his art. An oeuvre as a constant process of deepening. Through his persistent concentration, he has artistically opened up the landscape again and again, creating works that never fail to captivate the viewer.

"Well, to "listening" belongs "silence", and it seems to us that this is the basic motif of all Clarenbach's paintings.”

- Marie-Luise Baum

Literature that was used

Auss-Kat.: Max Clarenbach, ein Repräsentant rheinischer Kunst, Schloß Kalkum, Landkreis Düsseldorf-Mettmann, 196.

Clarenbach, Dietrich: "Wenn man Rheinländer und dazu noch 'Nüsser' ist, kann man, was man will ..." Im Jahr 2000 jährt sich zum 120sten Mal der Geburtstag Max Clarenbachs. In: Heimat-Jahrbuch Wittlaer, Band 21 (2000), S. 53-76.

Selected Bibliography

Clarenbach, Max. In: Ulrich Thieme (Hrsg.): Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Begründet von Ulrich Thieme und Felix Becker. Band 7: Cioffi–Cousyns, Leipzig 1912, S. 44.

Clarenbach, Max. In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler des XX. Jahrhunderts. Band 1: A–D, Leipzig 1953, S. 446.

Vogler, Karl: Sonderbund Düsseldorf. Seine Entstehung nach Briefen von August Deusser an Max Clarenbach, Düsseldorf 1977.

Hartwich, Viola: Max Clarenbach. Ein rheinischer Landschaftsmaler, Münster 1990.

Hans Paffrath: Max Clarenbach. 1880 Neuss – Köln 1952, Düsseldorf 2001.