Passions and Fervour. The Art of Powerful Emotions

Intro

Passion and Fervour. The Art of Powerful Emotions 9 October 2020 – 14 February 2021 LWL– Museum für Kunst und Kultur, Münster

Where there is no passion, everything is missing. There is nothing that can be attained without passion.

Alberto Moravia (1907-1990)

Passion / Leidenschaft – do the two words have exactly the same meaning? In modern English, “passion” evokes very powerful emotions, but the word originally referred to the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. Leidenschaft, the German equivalent, was coined in the 17th century by the writer and language reformer Philipp von Zesen to fill a gap, as even Martin Luther, who produced the first German version of the Bible, had not translated the Latin word passio.

Jacopo da Montagnana, Lamentation of Christ, around 1480 tempera and oil on canvas, 148 × 109,5 cm, © Landesmuseum Hannover

In both languages, the word “passion” has now lost its connotation of suffering and most people understand it as a positive synonym for “enthusiasm” or “ardent love”.

Ignaz Günther, Saint Theresa of Avila with an Angel, 1771 limewood, painted, 62,5 × 40 × 12 cm, © Bayerisches Nationalmuseum München / Krack, Bastian

The saint seems to be enraptured as she ascends to the skies together with an angel. She looks upwards, fulfilled by the divine love…

Käthe Kollwitz, Two Lovers I, around 1909/10 black chalk, 48,8 × 31,5 cm, © Käthe Kollwitz Museum Köln

… like this voluptuous woman, who also leans her head backwards as she abandons herself to pleasure. In both works, the artists chose similar devices to express two kinds of passionate love.

The saint seems to be enraptured as she ascends to the skies together with an angel. She looks upwards, fulfilled by the divine love…

Robert Arnold (born in 1954) used a comparable stylistic device for his video, inspired by the covers of cheap novelettes that take up the old cliché of the handsome macho man with a seductive power that no glamorous woman can resist.

Robert Arnold, The Morphology of Desire, 1998 video, 6 min, © Robert Arnold and LIMA Amsterdam

Which message do the Western fine arts convey with these images that create an enthralling tension between body and soul, emotions and reason? And which style is best suited to expressing powerful emotions?

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Copyrights

LITERATURE AND IMAGE RIGHTS:

Quotations:

"Where there is no passion, everything is missing. There is nothing that can be attained without passion." Alberto Moravia (1907-1990), quoted by: https://www.nur-zitate.com/zitat/1522

“It seems as though all affects of the soul, such as anger, clemency, fear, compassion, courage, joy, love and hate, are connected to the body, because it also suffers when they occur.” Aristotle (384–322 BC) out of: Aristotle, Über die Seele, edited and translated by Gernot Krapinger, Stuttgart 2011 (Reclams Universal-Bibliothek, 18602), p. 11

"The face shows the colour of the heart." Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), quoted by: https://www.aphorismen.de/zitat/17442

"The search for happiness is intrinsic to man. Therefore, nobody can reject this goal nor refuse to be happy." Saint Thomas Aquinas (about 1225-1274) out of: Richard Heinzmann, Thomas von Aquin. Eine Einführung in sein Denken. Mit ausgwählten lateinisch-deutschen Texten, Stuttgart, Berlin, Köln 1994, p. 53

"The passions are the only advocates that always persuade. […] The simplest man with passion will be more persuasive than the most eloquent without." François Rochefoucauld (1618-1680), quoted by: https://www.aphorismen.de/zitat/96167 Image: Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi after Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Anima Dannata [Damned Soul], 1705/07, bronze, red golden patina, limestone plinth, 60,5 × 27,5 × 26,5 cm, bronze 39,5 × 27,5 × 26,5 cm, © LIECHTENSTEIN. The Princely Collections, Vaduz – Vienna

"Dare to be wise!" Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), quoted by: https://wortwuchs.net/sapere-aude/

“[...] without the turmoil and confusion caused by emotions in real life [...].” Jean-Baptiste le Rond d’Alembert (1717–1783) out of: Kerstin Thomas, Passion, Sentiment, Emotion. Zur Gefühlskultur in der Kunst zwischen Aufklärung und Moderne, in: Passion Leidenschaft. Die Kunst der großen Gefühle, edited by Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe and Herrmann Arnhold, Berlin, Munich, Münster 2020, S. 79

"If there were nothing moral in a man’s heart, whence would come his ardent admiration for heroic acts, his turning with love to the great souls, his enthusiasm for virtue?" Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), Emile, or on Education, 4, quoted by: https://www.gutzitiert.de/zitat_autor_jean-jacques_rousseau_thema_moral_zitat_15478.html

"Photography is a marvellous discovery, a science that has attracted the greatest intellects, and an art that excites the most astute minds […]." Nadar (1820-1910), quoted by: https://gutezitate.com/zitat/128202

"When you stand before a painting, you don’t need to think to understand it, but you should think after you have understood it." Wolfgang Pfleiderer (1877-1971), quoted by: https://www.aphorismen.de/zitat/216916

"I am interested in what the old masters didn’t paint, those steps in between." Bill Viola (born in 1951), quoted by: https://interartive.org/2011/06/bill_viola_mater_dolorosa

Chapter Cover:

Key Visual: Lovis Corinth, Bacchanalia, 1896, oil on canvas, 117 × 207 cm, © Landesmuseum Hannover

1st Chapter: Master of Catherine of Cleves, Flagellation of Christ, from the Hours of Catherine of Lochhorst, around 1440/50, miniature painting on parchment, 19,2 × 12,9 cm, LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur, Münster/ Sabine Ahlbrand-Dornseif

2nd Chapter: Silvano Bertolin, Replica of the Laocoön Group, 2006, cast marble, patinated, 225 × 170 × 105 cm, © Lessing-Museum Kamenz

3rd Chapter: Peter Paul Rubens, The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula, around 1620, oil on wood, 49 × 39 cm, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brüssel, © RMFAB, Brussels / J. Geleyns - Art Photography

4th Chapter: Johann Caspar Lavater, Physiognomische Fragmente, zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntniß und Menschenliebe, 1787, book with copperplate engravings, 17,7 × 11,4 × 2,7 cm, © Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Münster

5th Chapter: Jeremy Shaw, New Covenant Church 4, Pray III. Jun 8, 1980, from the series Towards Universal Pattern Recognition, 2017, kaleidoscopic acrylic, chrome, photography, 34.8 × 40.5 × 14 cm, private collection. Photograph: Timo Ohler by courtesy of the artist and the König Galerie Berlin/London/Tokyo