Georg Jacobsen

The image builder. Georg Jacobsen and the constructive art begins in Paris in the 1920s, where Jacobsen and colleagues from all over the world were engaged in studying the construction of images. The constructive for many became a life-long project, whilst for others it was a short and tumultuous period in the aftermath of the first world war. This exhibition centres on Jacobsen and the Paris-group, and shows the ways in which the constructive element was developed by students of Jacobsen at Statens Kunstakademi in Oslo, an institution where Jacobsen was a teacher between 1935 and 1940.

Even if, today, Jacobsen is less visible in Norwegian and Danish art history, he would often give his opinion on art in newspapers and periodicals. In addition, he was honoured, and he sat on several committees and boards. In these various ways he would influence, not just his colleagues in Paris and his students in Norway, but he would also influence younger Danish painters. Hence, it is a pleasure to be able to present an overlooked artist, and his international connections, through 115 works drawn from both public and private owners, nationally and internationally. These works are divided into four different categories: The Paris-Group, Image Building, Georg Jacobsen, and The Period in Oslo.

This exhibition was shown at Ribe Kunstmuseum and Fuglsang Kunstmuseum in Copenhagen before arriving in Trondheim.

The Paris-Group

We are in Paris in the 1920s, where Georg Jacobsen would often visit the Mexican artist Diego Rivera. Amongst the other artists who would congregate here are the Swedish artist Otte Sköld, the Norwegian Alf Rolfsen, Russian Angelina Beloff and Brazilian Pedro Luiz Correia de Araújo – in addition to Jacobsen’s fellow Danes: Ellen Fischer and Adam Fischer. Members of the group have different aims and methods, but they are all of them, in their fundamentals, inspired by the French painter Paul Cézanne who writes about seeing nature as geometric shapes.

This theme gives an insight into a Paris which flourished in the 1920s, with a new, international, community of artists, ideas, and isms. Artists studied and taught in the city. The Fischer couple would open their house when artists from the Nordic countries arrived at the French capital. It is through the Fischers that Jacobsen becomes acquainted with Rivera. Jacobsen would come back for what was termed ‘analytical evenings’ in which the principles regarding the construction of images would be discussed and developed.

Image Building

When Georg Jensen, and other members of the Paris-group, started work on a new piece they would use compass and ruler. Proportions would be calculated, the motif sketched as geometric shapes, then the image area would be rotated around the central axis and shapes shifted in relation to each other and the image area.

If you want to get under the skin of Jacobsen’s art, you will have to look beyond the motif. Through both sketches and finished works we look closer at that which lies beneath the surface of a work, that which shows the ways Jacobsen would work when building a composition and locating motifs. Jacobsen approached painting through the eyes of an architect and the calculations of a mathematician, hence, he was named the theorist of the Paris-group.

Jacobsen developed his own equations for construction of images wherein little was left to chance. He preferred ‘the Golden Ratio’ and developed a format of subdivisions called ‘the Harmonic Gate’. He viewed nature as geometric shapes: cones, rectangles, circles, which could be moulded into vases, tables, or oranges, for instance. A contrast to this is Cubism which made geometry the shape of the motif. Jacobsen on the other hand used geometry as the skeleton underneath, upon which the motif would be placed.

In 1965 Jacobsen collected the thoughts of the Paris-group regarding construction of images in the theoretical work Noget om konstruktiv form i Billedkunst. The original manuscript can be seen in this exhibition.

The Period in Oslo

In 1935 Jacobsen was headhunted to sit in the chair of a specially created professorship at Statens Kunstakademi in Oslo. One of the arguments in favour of getting Jacobsen for the job was that without him Norwegian painters would rather be drawn to Paris for tutoring than stay in Norway. Many of his students, amongst them Ragnhild Kaarbø, had already sought up Jacobsen in the French capital, and some of them had also had lessons with Pedro Araújo, one of Jacobsen’s colleagues in the Paris group. Hence, they were already acquainted with the constructive approach to art and signed up for Jacobsen’s course on image building.

Jacobsen brought with him a sense of order and work discipline, something which many of his students would later highlight. He viewed art as a craft which could be learned. Even so, it was important that students not forget that what Jacobsen taught them was a tool and an inspiration for the structuring of images, which could then be mixed with personal motifs and experiences. Some would stall when met with displacements, rotations, and rulers, and would end up copying rather than creating something new. Others again would take what they found useful and actively use this. A handful of Jacobsen’s students, for instance Else Hagen, Aage Storstein and Alexander Schultz had good careers, and many of his students would later become professors and teach at the academy. All of them would attain their own style with Jacobsen’s teachings.

Georg Jacobsen

Jacobsen gained most of his fame for his still lifes, but he also painted portraits, as well as landscapes and street scenes. His most frequently used models were his wife, Sigrid, and his daughter, Marianne, examples of which we can see here. After several years in Paris Jacobsen went to Oslo to teach, and, when the professorship was ended in 1940, he moved to Copenhagen and sat on the board of the Art Association. He did a lot of decorative work, for instance on Lyngby-Taarbæk Town Hall and the City Council Chamber of Slagelse Town Hall, as well as in association with different committees. He would often give his opinion in art magazines and newspapers, and had several ideas, both as to what art should do, and how it should be performed.

In addition to being a painter, educated at Kunstakademiet under the tutelage of Skagen painter Viggo Johansen, Jacobsen was also an architect and a furniture designer.