Identities in transition: German landscape painting 1871-1914

Abstract

The approach to this thesis uses political history to interpret art history. The following chapters are dedicated to uncovering how artists defined Germany’s various lands. The analysis of identities in the paintings in this thesis are considered to be intangible, for at times artists are clearly constructing regional identities, particularly in the Worpswede colony. Others, such as the Eifel landscapes, are conscious markers of a national identity and attempts to combine it with the local. The Dachau paintings expand the issue further since, as it is argued here, Bavaria aspired to be a nation-state in its own right so artists represented a regional (Dachau) identity and federal and national (Bavarian) identity both of which fed into an overarching national (German) identity. The identities studied in this thesis are not binary; one does not exclusively dominate the other, but are constructed in a constant negotiation between the local, regional and national. As such this study participates in a wider dialogue that has exploded since the 1960s in sociology and beyond about the formation of identity.