Ernst Neumann's "New Values of Visual Art": Design Theory and Practice in Germany at the Turn-of-the-Century.

This article discusses the contributions of artist Ernst Neumann to the development of German art in the 1900s. Neumann was a leading figure in this graphic arts movement. Born in 1871 the son of a painting professor at the Kassel Academy, Neumann pursued his father's profession, studying initially in Kassel and then in Munich. Little is known about his early paintings, however, he soon shifted his focus to drawing for the new satirical journals Simplicissimus and Jugend that began publication in 1896. Economic pressure led him to join with Heinrich Wolf to found a school for graphic art in 1900. In this regard, Neumann began to explore applied graphic art, creating posters and programs for the Eleven Executioners, a cabaret founded in 1901 to forge a new relationship between art and variety theater. Neumann only vaguely alluded to the thematic contrast in such a work, but he did frequently use the phrase panicked shock to describe the expressive effect that he desired from such a spatial contrast, lived experience could produce shocking effects, making them a crucial component of graphic art, particularly advertising. Hence, he believed that such montage-like contrasts were necessary to express the thrills and dangers of urban life.