Gothic Modern

Around 1900, Edvard Munch, Käthe Kollwitz, and their contemporaries discovered Gothic art as a powerful source of inspiration for their own work. Their enthusiasm for works from the German lands and Northern Europe released energies for creative experiments in modern art beyond all national borders, conjuring up a new "Gothic modernism." What makes Gothic art from the 12th to 15th centuries modern? This richly illustrated book addresses this question by examining the strongly formative influence of medieval Gothic on the development of art around 1900. The sunken age of Gothic appears to artists as modern in terms of figurative language, motifs, and expressive power, serving as trend-setting for their own art. From the 1870s to the 1920s, this perspective inspired an entire generation to create new pictorial worlds that incorporated current issues of artistry, intellectual property, modern society, sexuality, spirituality, and identity. Artists featured include Joseph Alanen, Hans Baldung Grien, Ernst Barlach, Max Beckmann, Karl Bennewitz von Löfen, Fritz Boehle, Dirk Bouts, Arnold Böcklin, Gustav Carus, Lovis Corinth, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Otto Dix, Albrecht Dürer, James Ensor, Lyonel Feininger, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Matthias Grünewald, Ernst Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Theodor Kittelsen, Max Klinger, Käthe Kollwitz, Lowis Korinth, Georges Lacombe, Eugène Laermans, Théophile Lybaert, Karel Masek, Constantin Meunier, Georges Minne, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Edvard Munch, Ejnar Nielsen, Emil Nolde, Karl Nordström, Prins Eugen, Arthur Roessler, Tyko Sallinen, O. R. Schatz, Helene Schjerfbeck, Sascha Schneider, Hugo Simberg, Max Slevogt, Agnes Slott-Möller, Harald Slott-Møller, Gustav Adolph Spangenberg, Carl Spitzweg, Marianne Stokes, Henrik Sørensen, Hans Thoma, Gustave van de Woestyne, Vincent van Gogh, Emanuel Vigeland, and Gustav Vigeland.