Consecrated cubism

Strange paradox, the short cubist period (1918-1920) which was unanimously criticized is the one to become consecrated. There were not more than a dozen Swedish painters to try out Cézanne-style cubism, and Dick Beer may be the one that explored it in the most personal way. Hence in 1973 Dr Sten Karling, professor holding the history of art chair at the University of Stockholm, wrote an article to rehabilitate the painter as a cubist:

“His painting [at that epoch] can not be considered as intellectual artistic experimentations, it is an encounter with emotional manifestations where real life events are expressed. More than the cubist elements it is the expressionist force, the expressionist connection, which seduces us. This quest for a reinforced expression, this will to duplicate an intensified experience, that’s what strikes us in those large canvases from the end of the Great War. Those complex compositions with motives from the horse races, cafés or circus arenas translate a direct feeling of room, movement and rhythm, and that has nothing to do with any schematic stylisation. The cubist elements remind us more of textile discipline and impose the space in a manner which is rare in the painting of these years, so often imprisoned in the mere respect of surfaces. That’s why the pictures of Dick Beer from these years deserve a preponderant place in our modern art history.”

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