"An Anna Blume" ("To Anna Flower" also translated as "To Eve Blossom") is a
poem
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...
written by the German artist
Kurt Schwitters
Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters (20 June 1887 – 8 January 1948) was a German artist who was born in Hanover, Germany.
Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including dadaism, constructivism, surrealism, poetry, sound, pain ...
in 1919. It has been described as a parody of a love poem, an emblem of the chaos and madness of the era, and as a harbinger of a new poetic language.
The poem
Originally published in
Herwarth Walden
Herwarth Walden (actual name Georg Lewin; 16 September 1879, in Berlin – 31 October 1941, in Saratov, Russia) was a German expressionist artist and art expert in many disciplines. He is broadly acknowledged as one of the most important discove ...
's ''
Der Sturm
''Der Sturm'' () was a German List of avant-garde magazines, avant-garde art and literary magazine founded by Herwarth Walden, covering Expressionism, Cubism, Dada and Surrealism, among other artistic movements. It was published between 1910 an ...
'' magazine in August 1919, the poem made Schwitters famous almost overnight. The poem was parodied in newspapers and magazines, and strongly polarized public opinion.
Whilst Schwitters was never an official member of
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
Dada
Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...
, he was closely linked to many members of the group, in particular
Raoul Hausmann
Raoul Hausmann (July 12, 1886 – February 1, 1971) was an Austrian artist and writer. One of the key figures in Berlin Dada, his experimental photographic collages, sound poetry, and institutional critiques would have a profound influence on ...
and
Hans Arp
Hans Peter Wilhelm Arp (16 September 1886 – 7 June 1966), better known as Jean Arp in English, was a German-French sculptor, painter, and poet. He was known as a Dadaist and an abstract artist.
Early life
Arp was born in Straßburg (now Stras ...
, and the poem is written in a dadaist style, using multiple perspectives, fragments of found text, and
absurdist elements to mirror the fragmentation of the narrator's emotional state in the throes of love, or of Germany's political, military and economic collapse after the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
.
"Elements of poetry are letters, syllables, words, sentences. Poetry arises from the interaction of those elements. Meaning is important only if it employed as one such factor. I play off sense against nonsense. I prefer nonsense, but that is a purely personal matter." Kurt Schwitters, 1920
The poem was the subject of a particularly well-orchestrated publicity campaign. Initially fly-posted in Hannover, then subject to a spoiler in Herwarth Walden's der Sturm magazine asking 'Who really is Anna Blume?' answered with 'Twited brain! He painted the image of the time and didn't know it. Now he kneels before the daisies and prays.' Christof Spengemann The publication of the poem in September, two months after Schwitters' first one-man exhibition at Walden's Gallery in Berlin, cemented his reputation as a leading experimental collagist and poet. The poem became sufficiently famous to gain an English translation in 1922. It also provoked Berlin Dada into responding by exhibiting the effigy ''The Death Of Anna Blume'', by Rudolf Schlichter at the First International Dada Fair, Berlin 1920.
Richard Huelsenbeck
Carl Wilhelm Richard Hülsenbeck (aka Charles R. Hulbeck) (23 April 189220 April 1974) was a German writer, poet, and psychoanalyst born in Frankenau, Hessen-Nassau who was associated with the formation of the Dada movement.
Life and work
Huelsen ...
in particular found the poem offensively sentimental and romantic;
"Dada rejects emphatically and as a matter of principle works like the famous 'Anna Blume' of Kurt Schwitters."
Publication of the artist's book
Later in the year Schwitters would publish the poem in an
artist's book
Artists' books (or book arts or book objects) are works of art that utilize the form of the book. They are often published in small editions, though they are sometimes produced as one-of-a-kind objects.
Overview
Artists' books have employed a ...
called ''Anna Blume, Dichtungen''. The original book contains several poems and short stories, including ''Die Zwiebel'' (The Onion), a fairy story about the dismemberment of the narrator Alves Bäsenstiel, who, when reassembled, becomes the new King. The book also includes the poems ''Grünes Kind'' (Green Child) and ''Nächte'' (Nights).
The first edition was published by Verlag Paul Steegemann, Hannover, 1919. The second edition, published in 1920, was exactly the same but for 8 extra pages of adverts. The third edition, published in 1922, was substantially different, however. Noticeably smaller, but with more pages (88 compared to the original's 40) and a plain white sleeve with a pink border, the revised version only included nine of the original twenty pieces. The other twenty-seven pieces include English, French and Russian translations of ''Anna Blume'', ''Le Grande Ardeur de Dada (Marche Funèbre)'', a brief critique of
dada
Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...
written in French ('Let me explain - dada is the great root of all the little roots...'), and a series of newer poems that would point the way toward Schwitter's later poetic style, using a dramatically reduced vocabulary with heavy repetition. ''Zwölf'' (Twelve), for instance, only uses the first eleven numerals to create an eleven-line poem. ('One Two Three Four Five / Five Four Three Two One / Two Three Four Five Six / Six Five Four Three Two / Seven Seven Seven Seven Seven......)
The same year, Schwitters also published ''Memoiren Anna Blumes in Bleie'', a book that chronicled and parodied reactions to the original book.
Die Kathedrale
In 1920 Schwitters published a second book in the same format, called ''Die Kathedrale'' (The cathedral). Again published by Paul Steegemann, Hannover, the work contained 8 lithographs, and was published in an edition of c. 3000. The lithographs are in the style of Schwitters' drawings of the period, using found elements, collage and stamps, along with scratchy pen and ink drawings.
The book uses the cathedral as a metaphor, a theme common amongst
Expressionists
Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...
such as
Lyonel Feininger
Lyonel Charles Feininger (July 17, 1871January 13, 1956) was a German-American painter, and a leading exponent of Expressionism. He also worked as a caricaturist and comic strip artist. He was born and grew up in New York City, traveling to Germa ...
, and was to become a central feature of the organisation of the Bauhaus, with its system of Masters teaching 'apprentices' and 'journeymen' trades such as mural painting and weaving.
The title of Schwitters's book, ''Die Kathedrale'', reflects the Expressionists' embrace of the Gothic cathedral as an emblem of unification in the arts. The white square of paper on the cover, part of a wraparound seal added by Schwitters, declares, "Beware: Anti-Dada."
Constructivism: the move to periodicals
Schwitters' style became more constructivist after this, under the influence of
El Lissitzky
Lazar Markovich Lissitzky (russian: link=no, Ла́зарь Ма́ркович Лиси́цкий, ; – 30 December 1941), better known as El Lissitzky (russian: link=no, Эль Лиси́цкий; yi, על ליסיצקי), was a Russian artist ...
and
De Stijl
''De Stijl'' (; ), Dutch for "The Style", also known as Neoplasticism, was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 in Leiden. De Stijl consisted of artists and architects. In a more narrow sense, the term ''De Stijl'' is used to refer to a body o ...
, the Dutch group co-founded by
Theo van Doesburg
Theo van Doesburg (, 30 August 1883 – 7 March 1931) was a Dutch artist, who practiced painting, writing, poetry and architecture. He is best known as the founder and leader of De Stijl. He was married to artist, pianist and choreographer Nelly ...
, who was to become a close friend and collaborator. A memoir about Anna Blume (Anna Blume's Lead Memoirs in Bleie. An Easy-to-Understand Method for Everyone of How To Learn Madness) was published in 1922 with a markedly cleaner cover in a constructivist style, and this was followed by a series of periodicals, still called Merz, which continued to publish Schwitters' work, within the context of the emerging International Modernism.
Notes
References
*Anna Blume Dichtungen, Schwitters, Paul Steegemann Verlag, First Edition, 1919
*Anna Blume Dichtungen, Schwitters, Paul Steegemann Verlag, Third Edition, 1922
*Die Kathedrale, Schwitters, Friedhelm Lach, Facsimile, 1975
*The Collages of Kurt Schwitters, Dietrich, Cambridge University Press 1993
*Kurt Schwitters, Center Georges Pompidou, 1994
*In the Beginning Was Merz, Mayer-Buser, Orchard, Hatje Cantz
*Dada, Dickerman, National Gallery of Art, 2006
External links
*
''Memoiren Anna Blumes in Bleie'', a 1922 book by Schwitters about Anna Blume
{{Authority control
German poems
1919 poems
Artists' books
Dada
Works originally published in German magazines