Bieling, Hermann

Born Rotterdam, June 21, 1887; died Rhoon, Neterlands, 1964

82.76 Kirmes

1921

Linoleum cut, sheet: 12 1/4 x 16" (31 x 40.6 cm); composition: 9 x 12 1/2" (22.8 x 31.5 cm)

Signed, lr: Bieling '21

Print from Die Schaffenden, III. Jg., 2.

Provenance: Hauswedell Auction, Hamburg, Nr. 820, May 1959

.

82.76 Kirmes

1921

Linoleum cut, sheet: 12 1/4 x 16" (31 x 40.6 cm); composition: 9 x 12 1/2" (22.8 x 31.5 cm)

Signed, lr: Bieling '21

Print from Die Schaffenden, III. Jg., 2.

Provenance: Hauswedell Auction, Hamburg, Nr. 820, May 1959

Kirmes 1921

 Bieling here depicts one of the most popular themes in Dutch art, a scene from a raucous Kirmes festival. He effectively captures the mood and cacophony and the drunken revelry by cramming the picture frame with the diagonals of chairs, tables, and figures, coordinated compositionally by a Cubist-like intersection of geometric forms. The prismatic starbursts of fireworks in the sky reveal as well his understanding of the graphic dynamism of German Expressionism.

 Of note here is that Bieling reverses the normal woodcut technique, creating forms with white lines rather than black–an appropriate stylistic device for a depiction of a night-time scene, one perfected by many of the Expressionist artists