Felice Casorati

  Felice Casorati, Dreaming of Pomegranates, 1913

Felice Casorati (1883-1963) was born in Novara and showed an early interest in music and art. To please his parents he studied law at the University of Padua until 1906, but his ambition was to be a painter, an ambition confirmed in 1907 when a painting of his was shown in the Venice Biennale. The works he produced in the early years of his career were naturalistic in style. After 1910 the influence of the symbolists and particularly of Gustav Klimt (who also influenced  Ubaldo Oppi) turned him toward a more visionary approach. 

 Felice Casorati, Meriggio, 1923

In 1919, following his military service in World War I Casorati settled in Turin, intrigued by the decadent atmosphere of Turin with its sinister views. His works of the next decade typify, in their emphasis on geometry and formal clarity, the "return to order" then prevalent in the arts as a reaction to the war. Often working in tempera, Casorati drew inspiration from his study of Renaissance masters, especially Piero della Francesca, as in his 1922 portrait entitled Silvana Cenni:

 Felice Casorati, Portrait of Silvana Cenni, 1922

This symmetrical composition of a seated woman in a white dress is perhaps the best-known of the artist's works. In it, the careful rendering of volumes results paradoxically in a sense of unreality; this is characteristic of Casorati's art and it connects him to the metaphysical painters. 

 Felice Casorati, Beethoven, 1928

Briefly arrested in 1923 for his involvement with an anti-Fascist group, Casorati subsequently avoided opposing Mussolini's regime. After 1930 the severity of Casorati's earlier style softened somewhat and his palette brightened. He continued to exhibit widely, winning many awards, including the First Prize at the Venice Biennale of 1938. He was also involved in stage design. Felice Casorati died in Turin in 1963.

 Felice Casorati, La donna e l'armatura, 1921

Most of Casorati's important works are in Italian collections, public and private, including the Modern Art Revoltella Museum in Trieste and Galleria Nazionale di Arte Moderna. You can see more of his works here in my Flickr set.

Christian Schad

 Christian Schad, Self-Portrait, 1930s

Christian Schad (1894-1982) was born in Miesbach, Bavaria as the son of a wealthy lawyer family. He studied at the Art Academy in Munich in 1913, but quit after a couple of months because he rejected any examinations. A pacifist, he fled to Switzerland in 1915 to avoid service in World War I, settling first in Zurich and then in Geneva. Both cities were centers of the Dada movement, and Schad became a Dadaist and witnessed the foundation of the famous Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. 

Christian Schad, Imperial Countess Triangi-Taglioni, 1926

In this period he developed a close friendship with the writer and dadaist Walter Serner. Beginning in 1918, Schad created his own version of the Photogram (which later was named "Schadographs" by Tristan Tzara) where a contour picture is developed on light-sensitive platters. Schad's descriptions of his techniques were eventually used by both Man Ray and László Moholy-Nagy in their more extensive explorations.

 Christian Schad, Amourette, 1918 (Schadography)

Schad's paintings of 1915–1916 show the influence of Cubism and Futurism. Schad's most famous oil painting of that period, Kreuzabnahme (Cross-Decrease), was painted in grayish tones with Walter Serner as the model:

 Christian Schad, Kreuzabnahme, 1916

From 1920 to 1925, Schad spent some years in Rome and Naples, where he studied the Italian painters and was influenced by the new Italian Realism, notably by Ubaldo Oppi, Felice Casorati and the artistic group Novecento Italiano. In 1921 he started to paint in a sober, realistic style later referred to as Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), displaying  his interest in the relationship of the individual to society and conveying a sense of isolation and alienation. Schad married a lady from Rome, Marcella Arcangeli,  in 1923.  A wondeful portrait of Marcella was painted three years later:

 Christian Schad, Marcella, 1926

In 1927 the family emigrated to Vienna where Christian and Marcella separated (she died 1931 in a bathing accident). Schad went to Berlin in 1928 and settled there, now painting some of the most significant works of the New Objectivity. He led a dandyesque life visiting salons, dance and night bars. He was involved with some drawings in a "Guide to the vicious Berlin". His figures and motifs reflect the "golden" glamorous side of the Twenties.

Christian Schad, Self-Portrait with Model,1927

Also in 1927 Christian Schad painted his above "Self-Portrait with Model", which today has become the best known and most reproduced work of the artist and the New Objectivity. As the "painter with a scalpel," he dissects himself and his lover with cool objectivity. His eyes are wary, the atmosphere of the picture is cool, almost icy. The people depicted have nothing to say. Schad reported later that the woman's face was that of a stranger he saw as a customer in a stationery shop. The "sfregio", the facial scar, is a kind of "proof of love": the women in Naples wore these scars with pride to show that they had a jealous husband or lover.

 Christian Schad, Loving Boys, 1929

After the Nazis had seized power in 1933, Schad's art was not condemned in the way that the work of Otto Dix, George Grosz, Max Beckmann, and many other artists of the New Objectivity movement was, and in 1934 he was even able to submit some works to the" Great German Art Exhibition". This may have been because of his lack of commercial success and because the paintings of that time no longer possessed the cool sharpness of his earlier work. Also, Schad withdrew into a sort of "internal exile", reducing his painting to a only a few works. 

Christian Schad, Dr. Haustein, 1928. Dr. Haustein was a dermatologist with a specialist interest in syphilis who serviced the prostitutes on Berlin's Kurfürstendamm. In the late 1920s his home became a fashionable salon where many of the distinguished artistic and literary figures of the time would meet. Schad described the unique atmosphere there as being one of "extreme intellectual and erotic freedom where writers, artists, and politicians would mingle with a plethora of scientists, physicians and beautiful women:"

In 1935 Schad took over the management of a brewery operation (the family fortune had vanished in the 1929 stock market crash) and developped an intense interest in  East Asian mysticism. In 1936 the Museum of Modern Art in New York displayed some of his  early Schadography - without his knowledge. In search of a model Schad met the young actress Bettina Mittelstadt whom he portrayed in 1942. She became his second wife in 1947.

 Christian Schad, Bettina, 1942

After the destruction of his Berlin studio during a 1943 bombing raid Schad moved to Aschaffenburg, Bavaria. The city commissioned him to copy Grünewald's Virgin, a project on which he worked until 1947. Schad continued to paint in the 1950s in a softened, almost kitschy style. He died in Stuttgart on February 25, 1982.