The Art Journal (London), 1890
In 1890 The Art Journal of London ran a series visiting artists' studios across Europe. One instalment leaves the Hungarian puszta behind, puts on "Dr. Faust's magic mantle," and sets out for Munich — to the Findlingstrasse, up two staircases at No. 44. It is the richest contemporary account of her in English.
Where to find it
"The Studio of Hermione von Preuschen," in a series on artists' studios, The Art Journal (London), 1890, pp. 13–14.
The text
The Studio of Hermione von Preuschen
Now let us leave the Steppes, and donning Dr. Faust's magic mantle, set out for Munich. Let us go to the Findlingstrasse, mount two staircases in No. 441, and we stand in the studio of Frau Hermione von Preuschen.
Our eyes light up, we are in a real studio at last! In the home of this painter and poetess2 we find our long-sought artistic arrangement. Frau Hermione von Preuschen has done everything to make the room comfortable and beautiful, although for some tastes it might be considered overcrowded. Here the hand of a woman reveals itself; but not of the woman whose ideas cannot range beyond her little world of home and every-day life3; who only sees in the costliness and beauty of the decoration of a room a measure of the wealth of its owner. In her studio everything is costly and distinguished, and yet there is no ostentation.
The flowers and fruit in the pictures on the walls claim our attention first of all; but that is perfectly natural, as the mistress of this room is the painter of flowers and fruit and still-life. Any idea that in this studio our thoughts can only flit like a butterfly from one flower to another, maligns the genius of Frau Hermione von Preuschen. To disprove it, we have only to recall a work of hers which made a great commotion in the Art world a few years ago, 'Mors Imperator.'4
The whole of cultured society was interested in this picture, which, after being rejected by the Berlin Exhibition Jury, drew a large paying public5 in the exhibitions of the principal cities of Germany and Austria. 'Mors Imperator' was the expression of great power and great thought, which one hardly expected to find in the work of an artist who had hitherto been concerned entirely with still-life.
And yet was not 'Mors Imperator' still-life — marvellous still-life?6 Is not Death also in the flowers and fruit which fill the costly bowls, in the golden baskets, and in the silver dishes? Hermione von Preuschen has portrayed the transitory nature of things in a powerful allegory7, and this the great public has recognised.
Notes
Identifications, period context, and points where the original carries something English cannot. Added by this project; not in the source.
- ↑the Findlingstrasse, mount two staircases in No. 44 — Her Munich studio address. This is the only contemporary English source that gives it, which makes the passage useful for tracing her Munich years independently of her own memoir.
- ↑painter and poetess — The double description is plain fact, not a flourish. It is the same pairing Rilke reaches for six years later, arguing that in her the two arts are sisters. (Rilke on Preuschen, 1896)
- ↑but not of the woman whose ideas cannot range beyond her little world of home and every-day life — The compliment is built out of the insult it declines to make. The writer assumes his reader expects a woman's room to be domestic and vain, and spends the sentence getting her out from under that expectation — a fair measure of the ground she was working on.
- ↑'Mors Imperator.' — Her 1887 painting — Death enthroned as emperor. Rejected by the Berlin jury, it was then shown commercially to large paying crowds across Germany and Austria. It remains the picture she is best remembered for. (the painting)
- ↑after being rejected by the Berlin Exhibition Jury, drew a large paying public — Independent English confirmation of the scandal. Crucially it records that the rejection made the picture's fortune rather than ruining it — the same sequence she gives in her memoir, reported here by someone with no stake in her account.
- ↑was not 'Mors Imperator' still-life — marvellous still-life? — The most valuable sentence on the page. Her critics treated the death pictures as a departure from the flower painting; this writer refuses the split, arguing Death was always in the fruit and the flowers. That is the reading this site takes, published in English in 1890.
- ↑the transitory nature of things in a powerful allegory — The scan's optical character recognition scrambles this clause. It displaces the words "things in" to a later line. All the words are present and the order is recoverable with certainty, so it is given here as printed. The running head and page number, which fall inside the column, have been dropped.