Felix Nussbaum

Felix Nussbaum (11 December 1904 – 2 August 1944) was a German surrealist painter.

Early life and education

Nussbaum was born in Osnabrück, Province of Hanover, as the son of Rahel and Phillip Nussbaum. Phillip was a World War I veteran and German patriot before the rise of the Nazis. He was an amateur painter when he was younger, but was forced to pursue other means of work for financial reasons. He therefore encouraged his son’s artwork passionately.

Nussbaum was a lifelong student, beginning his formal studies in 1920 in Hamburg and Berlin and continuing as long as the current political situation allowed him. In his earlier works, Felix was heavily influenced by Vincent Van Gogh and Henri Rousseau and he eventually pays homage to Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà as well. Carl Hofer’s expressionist painting influenced Felix’s careful approach color.

In 1933, Nussbaum was studying on scholarship in Rome at the Berlin Academy of the Arts when the Nazis gained control of Germany. Adolf Hitler sent his Minister of Propaganda in April to Rome to explain to the artist elites how "a Nazi artist is to develop", which entailed promoting heroism and the Aryan race. Nussbaum began to understand that a Jewish artist like himself could no longer remain at the academy.

A decade of fear

Nussbaum began a decade of fear, which is directly reflected through his paintings. In 1934, he took Felka Platek, a painter who he had met while studying in Berlin and would marry in their exile in Brussels in 1937, to meet his parents in Switzerland. Felix's parents eventually grew homesick for Germany and, against his fiercest objections, [ [http://www1.yadvashem.org/exhibitions/nussbaum/intro.html Felix Nussbaum ] at www1.yadvashem.org] they returned. This was the last time Felix would see his mother and father — the source of his spiritual and financial support. Felix and Felka would spend the next ten years in exile, mostly in Belgium. Thus began Felix's emotional and artistic isolation.

After Belgium was attacked by Nazi Germany in 1940, Nussbaum was arrested by Belgian police as a "hostile alien" German and was taken to the Saint Cyprien camp in France. Under the desperate impression of the camp reflected in his pictures of that time, he signed a request to the French camp authorities to be returned to Germany. On the train ride from Saint Cyprien to Germany, he managed to escape and go to Felka in Brussels. It was there that they began a life of hiding. Without residency papers, Nussbaum had no form of income, but his friends provided him with shelter and art supplies so that he could continue his craft. The next four years would be the darkest of his life, expressing the grim reality of his exile.

"Self Portrait with Jewish Identity Card"

In this time period, two of his most well known works were created: "Self Portrait with Jewish Identity Card" (1943) and "Triumph of Death" (1944). These two works present us with the essence of Nussbaum’s fear. In the self-portrait, he mirrors the pits of his dread. His upturned collar and panicked posture are corroborated by his anxious eyes. He knows he is being hunted and the towering walls show little possibility of freedom. Although he foreshadows tragedy, he still offers hope in the blossoming tree outside the wall.

"Triumph of Death"

In his last painting, "Triumph of Death" (also known as "Death Triumphant"), skeletal creatures play and dance to music within a this barren wasteland. The presence of skin shows that they are not quite dead, illustrating Nussbaum’s knowledge of the painful reality of concentration camps. In the foreground, signs of life — books, a light, a clock, a phone, a bicycle — are destroyed. Even paintings — one of a female and one of a male — lie in the ruins. Aware of his upcoming death, Nussbaum offers an insight to the depths of his reality and how miserable it will be to have it taken away.

Though the color scheme and subject matter are grim, he leaves two signs of hope. In the bottom-center lies a card with a red heart on it and next to it is a palette of paint, full of rich colors. In the same moment, we see the joy of his passion and the taking of it.

"Triumph of Death" also shows Nussbaum's his attention to detail. According to his biography, "Felix Nussbaum: Art Defamed; Art in Exile; Art in Resistance", the crumpled music score has the first several bars of "The Lambeth Walk", a popular song from the musical "My and My Girl". The words that would normally accompany the text are "Ev'rythin' free and easy / Do as you darn well please," illustrating Nussbaum's desireFact|date=June 2007 to live a carefree life again.

"The Refugee"

There are two version of the 1939 painting, "The Refugee" ("Le réfugié"): one which was left behind in Brussels (oil on canvas) and another which was sent to Felix’s father (oil on plywood), probably to convince him of the dangers of remaining in occupied Germany. The latter, which is referred to in the following sections, can currently be found in the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem.

Syntax

"The Refugee" continues in Felix Nussbaum’s surrealist vein, combining formal technique with psychological inquiry through the careful use of color, lighting and perspective.

Color

One of the most striking aspects of this painting is Nussbaum’s monochromatic approach to color. Unlike his work a decade before, this painting is marked by a rotting brown to black palette that infuses a majority of the canvas. A detailed representation is sacrificed for an expressive balance of color and texture. The walls for example, although made of brick, show only few signs of their material. Instead they are marked by a delicately coarse blend of rusting browns to bring focus to their essence rather than their physical character. With a more careful eye to the texture of the paint, one can see a history of harsh movements in the bulk of the walls, furthering the character of these inanimate objects.

Lighting

The lighting also presents an intriguing assignment of expression over formality. It appears that the door is the only source of light. However, the shadow below the globe presents a second light source that must be behind and above the globe in order to project that kind of shadow. This hidden source gives Nussbaum an opportunity to use more dark tones by means of shadows and therefore further the somber tone of the piece.

Perspective

The use of perspective contributes additional information to the tone of the piece by leaving us with a view that prioritizes the inanimate objects – the desert, the walls, the globe, and the table – in size over the man. The outside forces look tremendous compared to the small man at the end of a long and dull table. The globe towers above the space and merges with the door opening as if to guide our eyes from one to the other. The man and his walking stick are only a small force compared to their much larger constituents.

For the most part, Nussbaum does not sacrifice technical accuracy in perspective for expressionism (e.g., though the table looks tremendous, the ends do indeed meet at a vanishing point consistent with the side walls.) The exception to his accuracy is the center wall. The side walls meet the center walls in a way that is incorrect for a room of all right angles. This leaves us with the impression that the walls are caving in, which can be corroborated in the alternate version (oil on canvas) in which the width of the center wall diminishes as it rises.

Onto-Historical World

Sadness, despair, isolation and inevitable doom are channeled in this painting and are implicit in Felix’s last ten years of art. However, less obvious is a virtual feeling of hope, which is just as common even in his periods of turmoil. In the edge of a globe that seems to have a shadow taking it over, there is a rich blue, similar to the vibrancy of the paint palette in "Death Triumphant" and the blossoming trees in "Self Portrait with Jewish Identity Card".

In reality, the Nazi shadow was indeed sweeping over Europe. The connections to the greater onto-historical world of the time are fairly obvious. The despair and depression was common for many minority groups of the time, as they knew they didn’t fit into the Nazi archetype of a perfect race.

Final years

1944 marked the fruition of the deadly Nazi machine’s plans for the Nussbaum family. Phillip and Rahel Nussbaum were killed at Auschwitz in February. In July, Felix and his wife were found hiding in an attic by German armed forces. They were arrested and given the numbers XXVI/284 and XXVI/285. On August 2, they arrived in Auschwitz and a week later, Felix’s fears came to reality. He was murdered at the age of 39. On September 3, Nussbaum’s brother was sent to Auschwitz. On September 6, his sister-in-law and niece were murdered in Auschwitz. In December, his brother – the last of the family – died from exhaustion in the camp at Stutthof. With one fell swoop, the Nussbaum family was officially and completely exterminated.

Legacy

Felix Nussbaum’s artwork leaves us a rare glimpse into the essence of the individual within the victims of the Holocaust. For a decade, Nussbaum knew that life had become a dead end. The insight to Nussbaum’s internal reality helps to make these emotions more real. We get an understanding that the Holocaust was not a simple genocide. Death was not a simple and quick crime. It was a long and tumultuous process plagued by fear and running and hope and loss of hope – a truly introspective process and an absolute nightmare.

In 1998, the Felix Nussbaum Haus in Osnabrück opened its doors, where his works are exhibited.

External links

* [http://www.felix-nussbaum.de/werkverzeichnis/ Werkverzeichnis]
* [http://www1.yadvashem.org/exhibitions/nussbaum/home_nussbaum.html Biography with images]
* [http://www.tendreams.org/nussbaum.htm Ten Dreams Galleries]
* [http://www.osnabrueck-net.de/Kultur/Nussbaum/ Information from the city of Osnabrück] (English, German)
* [http://www.osnabrueck.de/10709.asp The Felix Nussbaum Haus (Museum)] (German)
* [http://www.dlux.net/~holocaustart/Classes.htm Nussbaum educational powerpoint class description, with reproductions of three Nussbaum paintings including titles, sizes, year created, current ownership]

References

* [http://www1.yadvashem.org/exhibitions/nussbaum/home_nussbaum.html "Felix Nussbaum Intro"] . Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum.
* [http://www.osnabrueck.de/10508.asp "Friedensstadt Osnabrück - Felix Nussbaum"]
*Karl, Kaster G. "Felix Nussbaum: Art Defamed, Art in Exile, Art in Resistance". 1st English ed. Overlook, 1997.
* [http://www.tendreams.org/nussbaum.htm "Ten Dreams: Felix Nussbaum Galleries"]