BARLACH, ERNST
Publié le 22/02/2012
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BARLACH, ERNST (1870–1938), illustrator, sculptor, and writer; best known
for his monuments honoring Germany's war dead. Born to a physician in Wedel
(Holstein), he became the master pupil of Robert Diez at the Dresden Academy
(1891–1895) before studying at Paris's Julian Academy (1895–1896). It was a
1906 Russian tour, however, that inspired his personal style. His ties with publisher
Paul Cassirer led in 1907 to an illustration contract; for two years he drew
for the Munich periodical Simplizissimus. In 1910, after a lengthy sojourn in
Florence, he settled in the Mecklenburg town of Gu¨strow, where he remained
most of his life.
An outspoken patriot in 1914, Barlach was later repelled by the war when he
was touched by its widespread misery. The Weimar era brought him numerous
accolades: appointment in 1919 to the Berlin Academy of Arts; receipt in 1924
of the Kleist Prize for Literature; Honorary Membership in the Munich Arts
Academy in 1925; and the award in 1933, upon recommendations from Max
Liebermann* and Ka¨the Kollwitz,* of the Pour le Me´rite (Peace Class). With
Kollwitz and Gerhard Marcks,* he was among Germany's premier sculptors. A
spiritual man who claimed his greatest satisfaction when working in wood, he
emulated the medieval masters by completing his illustrations as woodcuts.
Among his best-known work is the 1922 portfolio Die Wandlungen Gottes (The
transformations of God), a series of plates depicting the Genesis story. His
wooden monuments to the war's fallen soldiers—completed for Magdeburg,
Hamburg, Kiel, and Gu¨strow—were testimonials against war. Indeed, his art
increasingly depicted travail as mankind's basic condition.
In addition to lithographs and woodcuts, Barlach rendered his artistry through
several writings, including dramas, novels, and poetry. The plays, beginning in
1912 with Der tote Tag (Dead day), inevitably dealt with questions of life,
religion, and death. He was forbidden from 1933 to exhibit his art and he collapsed
into despair during his final years as his work was first condemned as
degenerate and then systematically destroyed throughout Germany.
Liens utiles
- Barlach, Ernst - vie et oeuvre du peintre.
- Barlach, Ernst - sculpture.
- Orages d’Acier, Ernst JÜNGER, 1920 Résume
- ESPRIT DE L’UTOPIE (L’), Geist der Utopie, 1918. Ernst Bloch
- DÉLUGE (Le) de Barlach (résumé & analyse)