The work Stunde des Pan marks the transition from Hubert Berke’s figurative early work to abstraction: the black contours were later to liberate themselves into an independent line. As with Fritz Winter in this period, with whom Berke studied at the Düsseldorf Academy under Paul Klee, Stunde des Pan is characterized by bold areas of colour surrounded by strong black lines.
In 1951 Berke joined the artists group ZEN 49 – founded in Munich in 1949 – which provided him with a new basis for his lengthy study of the art and philosophy of East Asia. Together with Fritz Winter, Willi Baumeister, Rupprecht Geiger, Brigitte Matschinsky-Denninghoff and others, he took a great interest in Zen philosophy in the hope of finding peace following the trauma of the Second World War.
Hubert Berke (1908–1979)
Die Stunde des Pan, 1949
Currently exhibited: No
Material: Oil on canvas
Size: 130 x 105 cm
Inv-Nr.: B_039
Image rights: Nachlass Hubert Berke
Keywords:
Acquisition: Reinhard Ernst Collection, Galerie Maulberger, Munich, 2009
Group exhibitions:
1960
‘Das frühe Bild – Malerei und Plastik’, Haus der Kunst, Munich
Deutscher Künstlerbund, 10. Jahresausstellung, sideshow
1957
‘Malerei des 20 Jhd. in Kölner Privatsammlungen’, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne
Abstraction occupies an important place in Hubert Berke’s entire oeuvre. After the end of the war, he revitalized the regional art scene through the Donnerstags-Gesellschaft (Thursday Society), which he founded and which hosted numerous readings, concerts, lectures, and exhibitions at Schloss Alfter near Bonn from 1947 to 1950. This initiative was a great encouragement to abstract modern art and offered a valuable exchange for artists and art lovers in the Rhineland after the war.
‘The civilized world is essentially exhausted and barren; everything is masked, inflexible […] So we must shape the forces at work behind the appearance of things. To make this possible, we need to step far back, to see an actual order and the eternal behind the apparent isolation of things…’ [1]
The idea of the freedom of the creative alluded to in this quote shows the influence of his teacher Paul Klee with whom he studied at Düsseldorf Art Academy in 1933. The bold areas of colour and strong, dark lines in Stunde des Pan are characteristic of his work. In a very two-dimensional pictorial organisation, interlaced and starkly contrasted areas of colour are placed in opposition to each other. The work marks the transition from Berke’s early figurative work to abstraction.
In 1951 Berke joined the artists group ZEN 49 – founded in Munich in 1949 – which provided him with a new basis for his lengthy study of the art and philosophy of East Asia. Together with Fritz Winter, Willi Baumeister, Rupprecht Geiger, Brigitte Matschinsky-Denninghoff and others, he took a great interest in Zen philosophy in the hope of finding peace following the trauma of the Second World War. Nature was to serve as a ‘treasure trove of forms of a language of the soul’ in which ‘the cosmos, both outside and within man, can be expressed and interpreted’ [2].
Berke had already developed an interest in the culture of East Asia and the Zen Buddhist view of life while attending missionary and convent schools in Bocholt and Bensheim. This was one of the reasons why he initially aspired to Catholic missionary work in China during his studies.
[1] L. F. von Maltzan: ‘Gespräche mit Hubert Berke’, in: Die Kunst und das schöne Heim, 52nd Jg., H. 1, 1953, p. 57.
[2] John Anthony Thwaites: ‘Notizen über drei Maler des neueren Stils’, in Das Kunstwerk, 7th Jg., H. 3/4, 1953, p. 47.
