Rudolf Belling

Rudolf Belling Edwin ( born August 26, 1886 in Berlin, † June 9, 1972 in Krailling near Munich) was a German sculptor.

Life

Belling received a rather conservative upbringing by his parents Ernst and Helene ( née Thomas ). From 1892 to 1901 he attended the elementary school in Steglitz, then the Prussian military boarding Luisenstift. He began an apprenticeship, which he led to the end. It was clear to him that he wanted to be not a merchant, and he began to work as an apprentice in an arts and crafts workshop. He then went through a training course at a trade school.

Belling also formed autodidactically, attended evening classes for drawing and modeling and anatomy lectures for artists at the veterinary school in Berlin. 1908 made ​​Belling, independently together with Emil Kaselow, with a studio for small sculptures, decorative and applied arts. Since 1909, the company took special orders for theatrical productions of Max Reinhardt. After the dissolution of the studio in 1910, he worked in the Kaschierabteilung a theater workshop. He closed at this time important acquaintances such as Max Reinhardt, Ernst Stern, whose expressionist Chefbühnenbildner and Hans Poelzig a job in Turkey gave him when he got no more orders in Nazi Germany. By working as a set designer Belling learned the new trends of expressionist art and literature know. The theater shaped the themes and symbolism of his following works hard, again and again we find the subject of the dance. In 1911, Peter Breuer, professor of sculpture at the Academy of Arts Berlin -Charlottenburg, attentive to Belling and took him without preparatory studies in the master class on. In addition, Breuer made ​​him a private student studio at his disposal.

By this phrase now it was possible Belling, on the one hand to give his autodidactic studies as a sculptor, an academic base and on the other hand continue to earn money through the stage design. During this time he worked on the theories of Adolf von Hildebrand in his book "The problem of form in the visual arts ." Between 1915 and 1917 Belling served as a soldier in the Army Air Service Berlin - Adlershof, where it is active in the model department.

From the end of 1918, after the proclamation of the Republic, also came Belling into a vortex of revolutionary events and new ideas. In Berlin, the Workers' Art was founded, which also Belling was represented. In December of the same year, the progressive artists' group " November Group " was founded, was one of their exhibition Commission Belling as co-founder. Belling worked until 1932 the board of the group.

In 1919 his famous sculpture triad. In addition, Belling devoted himself in this time of applied art. He made 1920 and 1921 advertising structures and mannequins. In 1925 he married the dancer Toni Friedlaender. Between 1924 and 1926, Belling went on a study trip through Europe. In the following years Belling worked, along with a number of important architects, of private and public buildings and also designed a number of sculptural portraits.

1931 Belling was appointed a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin. From 1933, however, he was increasingly boycotted and denounced as "degenerate", which led to his resignation from the Academy of Arts. 1935 after Belling received a teaching assignment in New York, he emigrated. In the same year he divorced his wife. In 1936 he returned to Germany, but the political circumstances forced him to leave his homeland again. In the first Great German Art Exhibition 1937, he was shown at the same time but also in the Degenerate Art exhibition. 1937 Rudolf Belling traveled to Turkey, where he worked at the Art Academy in Istanbul. He spent the following years of war in Turkey. He married in 1942 Jolanda Manzini. 1944 his studio was bombed in Germany and many designs and originals were destroyed. Since 1951 he worked at the Technical University of Istanbul. In 1966 he returned to Germany. He died in 1972 in Krailling near Munich. The estate is managed in Munich by his daughter Elisabeth Weber Belling.

Work

Belling work can be divided into three parts, his time in Berlin until the 30s, his life in exile in Turkey and his last years in Munich.

From 1912 Belling cubist - expressive sculptures began to create. He was influenced by futurist and constructivist ideas, especially by Alexander Archipenko, with whom he was friends. The culmination of his artistic career is his work triad, as the first German sculpture of this kind, in which he seeks to create the idea of ​​a union of art forms (painting, sculpture, architecture). In the same year the Bauhaus was founded, which was of the same area and shape understanding. The musical contemplation of the title is thus of secondary importance, although his work often leans to the subject of the dancer. Belling saw his formal language, however, no longer derived from reality, but admitted that his utter abstraction may well approach the realities. He stressed that this reference to the representational a random and not intentional was. Triad is a sculpture in the round, so there is no concrete main view more, each view is considered as equivalent, with which he disagreed, especially the art-theoretical ideas of Hildebrand. Characteristic is the relationship between space and sculpture, Belling considered as equivalent and thus his sculpture from their interplay could occur. Belling described his way of working themselves to the point: " If I make a sculpture, so I organize the forms and let them grow like a tree or people. " It should also be noted that he regarded himself as a craftsman and not as an artist in the first place. As of 1920, especially the theme of " man-machine machine" and the use of new materials in the center. He turned increasingly to architecture. 1926 was the " Horch animal ," a hood ornament for the car company Horch, which was never used because a merger of Horch to Audi. In addition, from this period, sometimes through collaboration with architects such as Luckhardt, Würzbach, Neutra and grain, architectural works and abstract fountain sculptures. In them, he attempted by the moving component water to break through the static normal sculptures. The idea of ​​a Gesamtkunstwerk flows clear with a.

The fact of his emigration to Turkey characterized the ensuing period of his work.

Works (selection)

Honors

In 1955 the Federal Cross of Merit he was awarded by the Federal President Theodor Heuss. There followed in 1956 the re-appointment as a member of the Academy of Arts in Berlin in 1961 and the award of the Berlin Art Prize. His work has been awarded in 1967 and 1976 in Munich and 1971 in St. Gallen. In addition, Belling received an honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Munich in the same year. He was awarded the Grand Cross of Merit with Star in 1972.