Lot 313 D

This early, purely abstract composition by Willi Baumeister belongs to a sequence of six formal variants which - under the title “Konstruktivistisch” (Constructivist) - were segmented out of a larger composition of the “Flächenkräfte” (Planar Forces) and isolated as independent works (cf. Beye/ F. Baumeister, 234-239; see also the illustration provided for comparison). In the present case, with regards to the original organisation of the picture plane, the new work created in this way was supplemented by two small fields of different sizes: a red and a black square.
The highly important series of the “Flächenkräfte” and “Mauerbilder” (Wall Paintings) were created around 1920 and were the first to display substantial independence on the part of the artist. Also in the presented work smooth and raised, rough surfaces are juxtaposed with one another. Because the stripes, rectangles and triangle are arranged on the ground of the painting as parallel, individual shapes, the surface seems rigorously composed - with the placement of the elements being carefully balanced and simultaneously dynamic. The colours have been applied sparingly and evoke a certain purism.
“The problem of the series or, alternatively, the variation plays an integrative role in Baumeister's development from this point on. There is no painter who has been able to modify every one of his designs as diversely as him, unless we think of Monet's sequence of 'Hay Stacks', which had a wholly different intention, or of Pablo Picasso's application of different schemata to a theme by Velázquez, Delacroix or Manet. In Baumeister's case the deciding design, with its melody, rhythm and tonal character, remains untouched throughout the entire series - regardless of how many works belong to the series, whether three or eighteen - and the variations are related to the extending or shortening, the modification or the embellishment of the melody, to the modification of the rhythmic or the harmonic sequence and the individual forms. Aside from the early stages featuring the 'Badenden' [Bathers], the 'Mauerbider' are the first series and the geometrising planar paintings the second. ... In the harmonical paintings, Baumeister varies from the balance of coloured rectangular fields to the dynamism of variously weighted and variously sized shapes, and he thus draws close to the stereometric paintings of Lissitzky and Moholy-Nagy, without any awareness of doing so.” (Will Grohmann, Willi Baumeister, Leben und Werk, Cologne 1963, p. 48).