Draft Report take 1

DRAFT REPORT 

Here is my initial draft for my 2000 word essay on new Objectivity. I have completed approx 500-600 words and will submit these to Sian tomorrow to see if I am heading in the right direction with my work. I will be creating the work in 500 word intervals, I do not see a point in attempting the full 2000 words in one. Projects like this need careful consideration and much research, this cannot be completed in one go! Especially if it is a historic movement, with many influences and factors govering its creation and demise within such a short space of time (1919-1933).

Neue Sachlichkeit - New 'Objectivity', New 'Sobriety', New 'Impartiality', New 'Matter of Fact' are the closest interpretations of the Germanic or Weimar Republic, Neue sachlichkeit.

The term Neue Sachlichkeit came about in 1925 by Gustav F Hartlaub, director of the Mannheim Kunsthall when he displayed the works of George Grosz, Otto Dix, Max Beckmann, george Schrimpf, Alexander Kanoldt, Carlo mense, George Scholz and Heinrich Davringhausen. 'New Objectivity' as its name suggests was an emerging art form and was in direct opposition to the a more visually distorted, abstract and idealist styles of Expressionism. Gustav Hartlaub brought together these contemporary artists in an exhibition, whose paintings were true to a tangible, objective reality.

New Objectivity was brought about from the shared experiences of the German people after the great War, as the war ended the Weimar Republic was borne (1919-1933). Germany was changing and peoples perceptions were changing too, along came Modernism (which still contained the art form Expressionism), New Sachlichkeit and the Bauhaus School of Art. Each movement as a direct result of the sobering of a post war Germany, were people began to see a realism emerge into their establishment, changing attitude and progression. New Objectivity was a way for the people to make sense of what had happened and to bring their lives under control once more. The point of new Objectivity was to depict form, simplicity and matter of factness of everyday lives and objects.

(looking at photography…) ‘What do you see? It becomes more and more subtle, more and more modern, and the result is that it can no longer photograph a rundown apartment house or a pile of manure without transfiguring. Not to speak of the fact that it would be impossible to say anything about a dam or a cable factory except this: the world is beautiful. The World is Beautiful that is the title of a famous book of photographs by Renger-Patsch, in which we see the photography of the ‘new objectivity’ at its height. It has even succeeded in making misery itself an object of pleasure, by treating it stylishly and with technical perfection.' - Walter Benjamin. [Essay: The Author as Producer. PDF pg. 96]

Walter Benjamin was making the point that through New Objectivity the People of the Weimar Republic were '... making human misery an object of consumption.' or 'the struggle against misery into an object of consumption.'

Here is my feedback from Sian:
Yes, this is a good start – your prose is very readable and you are displaying a good level of understanding. You need to start referencing properly from the sources that your are using, and I would advise that you begin to look in a less biographical manner at the nature of the movement, and start to analyse it at a more critical depth. Some of the writing is a little descriptive and repetitive when more research would allow a deeper understanding and reflect on the time.

http://renaissanceutterances.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/definitions-of-modernism-new.html

"...I mean photography is an analytical discipline. It's accumulation; It's the resonance of facts." - Stephen Shore [http://seesawmagazine.com/shore_pages/shore_interview.html]