Friedrich Nietzsche and the Artists of the New Weimar (English)

Sebastian Schütze Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen 

Around 1900, a small group of influential patrons, critics, writers, and artists turned Weimar; the capital of the small Duchy of Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach in present-day Germany, into a utopian centre of modern art and thought. Artists like Max Klinger, Edvard Munch, and Ludwig von Hofmann, and writers like André Gide, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and Rainer Maria Rilke sought to create a “New Weimar” and position Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) at its head as the radical prophet of modernity.

In 1902, two years after Nietzsche's death, Max Klinger was commissioned to carve his portrait. Only three monumental bronze versions were cast, one of which is now in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada. With this sculpture in focus, Friedrich Nietzsche and the Artists of the New Weimar shows how Klinger and his patrons invented the “official” Nietzsche, transforming a highly expressionist portrait into an idealized classical cult image.

Softcover | 120 pages
20.5 x 24 cm (8 x 9.4 in.)
Publication Date: 2019