GERMAN literature of the 19th century has been gradually reclaimed for Europe even if Goethe and Heine, and perhaps Holderlin, have never fallen from grace. The Kleist cult marches on, there have been spasmodic attempts to bring Morike (a great writer who seemingly travels badly) outside the confines of his rectory garden, Fontane's novels appear under a variety of paperback labels, Stifter's stories are in Penguin Books, etc.
The visual art of the period has had a harder and more upward struggle, though Bocklin has come back triumphantly from his Isle of the Dead and there is some interest in Leibl and his circle, in Marees, and of course in early Romantics such as Friedrich. Is it to be Menzel's turn now? This summer's big exhibition in Paris would seem to indicate that he is coming in again on the tide.
Menzel lived a long time (1815 to 1905) and so passed through several epochs of Prussian and German history. He was one of the new liberal bourgeoisie who saw at first hand the 1848 Revolution fail in Berlin, he witnessed the rise of Bismarck (whom he disliked, and even opposed on occasion), and in old age he became a kind of pet of the Wilhelminian court and was given a state funeral. He even visited the battlefield of Koniggratz in 1866 where he sketched the dead and dying, whether Prussian or Austrian, with harsh but poignant realism. All of which encapsulates a great deal of human life and strife, and he bore witness to it with an almost impersonal fidelity of the kind which today is virtually confined to TV cameras.
History was in fact one of his strongest points, since all his life he was fascinated by the dynastic hero of Prussia, Frederick the Great. He first came before the public with a series of book illustrations of the warrior king's career, and over the years he painted major canvases of his extraordinary and adventurous life, some of which were tragically destroyed or lost in 1945 (including a recreation of one of Frederick's few defeats, at Hochkirch, which may have been Menzel's masterpiece). He was also a pioneer in painting heavy industry, in a massive picture called The Rolling Mill, which is worthy to stand beside Courbet.
This huge output - his drawings are counted by the thousand - was accomplished by a man who was almost a dwarf (under five feet tall) and who was orphaned in his teens, after which he supported his family by disciplined industry and will power. Menzel never married, he lost both his brother and brother in law in middle age, and was looked after domestically by his sister when he was not toiling in his big, spacious studio like one of the Seven Dwarfs in their mine.
He was a compulsive traveller, familiar with Paris and with French art and artists, and was respected by Degas, who even made a copy of one of Menzel's paintings, Supper at the Ball (in which one of the many figures represents Bismarck himself). Degas particularly admired his ability to paint artificial light, a new challenge facing artists as the modern big city culture began to take shape throughout Europe.
Berlin in his time was not an art capital - certainly not one to compare with Paris, or even with relatively provincial Munich; but as an artist Menzel does not seem to have felt any lack of air and space there. He was friendly with leading German writers, notably - Fontane (who wrote about him) and Theodor Storm, he was visited by Turgeaev, he loved Beethoven's quartets and made a drawing of Wagner during rehearsals at Bayreuth - all of which would seem to indicate a certain breadth of culture. Yet though Menzel became a public name, he was never quite a public man. He clung dourly to his privacy, and those who tried too openly to breach it often found him crusty and quick to take offence.
The current revival focuses, predictably, on his smaller, intimate works, both outdoor and domestic, in which he is supposed to have anticipated Impressionism (but then, who didn't?). His gouaches, in particular, are often small masterpieces, and he is one of the very greatest black and white draughtsmen in a century which produced more masters of pencil or crayon or charcoal than any age since the Renaissance. This fine book, which is tied to the exhibition mentioned, does him full justice under both headings, but it might have shown more of the big, full dress pictures on which he toiled so long and so obsessively.
Essentially Menzel represented the new, emerging, rationalistic middle class with a devotion to "truth" and scientific accuracy; his fierce, probing gaze from behind his pince nez was often noted, as he turned all his powers of razor sharp observation and analysis on the subject at hand. That is not an attitude which is fashionable today, perhaps it is not even understood, but in him it produced great art. The fact that his European stature is again being recognised is possibly a sign of the times.