Rembrandt as Educator

Remembrandt as Educator proved a sensation when first published in 1890. The title derives from Nietzsche’s essay, ‘Schopenhauer als Erzieher’. It was a response to the consequences of German unifi cation in 1871, when Prussia’s politican successes threatened to engulf Germany with its militarism, industrialisation, and rationalist tendencies in science and art. Marxists responded with economic projects based on the ‘class struggle’. Idealists proposed a revolution through the renewal of German culture. Langbehn’s work may be considered an early representative of the Conservative Revolution, since it sought to combat the evils of democratic culture at the turn of the century—established by parvenu cosmopolitan elites that promoted foreign, especially French artistic fashions—with a return to the natural aristocratic ethos of the strongest element in the German population. Langbehn’s subtle and detailed analysis of the North German character aims at demonstrating its suitability to lead the newly formed German Reich, and to serve as a model for mankind in general. In this eff ort, Rembrandt symbolised for Langbehn the quintessential German spirit. Langbehn’s work is also a major contribution to the corpus on the Nordic ideal, begun by Arthur, Comte de Gobineau and continued by Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Alfred Rosenberg, and Hans Günther. Moreover, Langbehn’s emphasis on the cultivation of the physique as a manifestation of the German’s ethical personality found practical application in youth movements, such as the Wandervogel. This long-neglected, long-supressed, yet seminal work is now available in English for the fi rst time in this edition, translated with a foreword by Dr Alexander Jacob.