The Washington Times
  • Subscribe
  • Times News Services
  • RSS
  • Mobile Headlines
  • e-edition
  • E-MAIL ALERTS
  • REGISTER
  • LOG IN
  • E-MAIL ALERTS
  • WELCOME
  • Your Profile
  • Log Out
  • Front Page Image
  • Classifieds
  • Autos
  • Real Estate
  • Jobs
  • Special Sections
  • Customer Service
  • Home
  • News
  • Opinion
  • Sports
    • NFL
    • NBA/WNBA
    • MLB
    • NHL
    • Tennis
    • Golf
    • Motorsports
    • Soccer
    • NCAA
    • Olympics
    • Outdoors
    • Other
  • Culture
    • Home & Living
    • Family & Kids
    • Fashion
    • Food
    • Travel
    • Health
    • Washington Visitors
    • Books
    • Military History
    • Life
    • Auto
    • TV Listings
    • Movie Listings
    • Death Notices
    • Entertainment
  • Themes
  • Communities
  • Marketplace
    • Autos
    • Jobs
    • Real Estate
    • Classifieds
    • Shopping
    • Dining Out
    • Education
    • TWT Store
  • Videos
    • Two Guys
    • Birnbaum on Washington
    • Liz Glover
    • Amanda Carpenter
    • Morning Briefing
    • Documentaries
    • Joe Giganti
    • Video Game Minute
  • Podcasts
    • About Headlines
    • Audio and Radio
    • America's Morning News
  • Local

    Gov. Kaine clears way for D.C. sniper's execution

  • Politics

    EXCLUSIVE: Warner: Obama misplayed health care debate

  • National

    Justices weigh juveniles' life without parole

  • National

    Leadership changes at The Times

  • National

    Hood suspect earlier came under FBI scrutiny

  • National

    PRUDEN: Fatal reluctance to see evil

  • World

    Envoy: Europe relies on U.S. shield

Friday, July 7, 2006

Dark arts and life

Rate this story

Average 0.00
after 0 votes
Login or register to rate this story

  • Font Size -+
  • Print
  • Email
  • Comment
  • Tweet this!
  • Share
  • Article
  • Comments ()
  • Click-2-Listen
  • Videos

More Stories

  • Bill Clinton to press Senate on health care
  • Obama to send more troops to Afghanistan
  • Hood suspect earlier came under FBI scrutiny
  • Ida weakens to a depression, heads east to Fla.

By

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden's "Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth" evokes apocalyptic skies opening over scarred terrestrial mounds shaking beneath. Gallery after gallery envelops us with dark-hued, torn symbols that the artist intends as transcendent, transforming and healing.

If so, how can these symbols of death really be about rebirth? Apocalyptic visions from Zarathustra through today lace art history, especially those by Mr. Kiefer's predecessor, fellow German Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), who imaged the famed "Death," "Famine," "War" and "Pestilence" of the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse."

For Durer, there was no transcendence in his time of German political upheavals, just as there was none for Hieronymus Bosch in the pessimism of late-15th-century Flanders, as reflected in the hellish landscape of his "Garden of Earthly Delights" (circa 1504).

And although all three artists present end-of-world visions, Mr. Kiefer is the only one to express his thorough images of transcendent rebirths.

The artist uses paradoxes and contradictions even in the show's name.

"The title 'Heaven and Earth' is a paradox because heaven and earth don't exist anymore. The earth is round," Mr. Kiefer says in an interview in the exhibit's catalog. "The cosmos has no up and down. It is moving constantly. We can no longer fix the stars to create an ideal place. This is our dilemma."

There is no mistaking that he believes transformation comes from intense suffering.

For example, observe the artist's fiery, charred landscape in "Painting of the Scorched Earth" (1974). Here, he paints the fires of Buchen, a former military installation for storing flammable liquids. Fires burn behind barbed-wire circles.

Yet, of the fires of "Quaternity" (1973), Mr. Kiefer writes, "There is always the distant memory of an ancient fire that creates and destroys. Everything comes from and returns to fire. It is as powerful as time."

He lived in the simulated wooden schoolhouse of this picture in Germany's Odenwald district during the early 1970s.

123Next »

Post a comment

There are comments on this article, submit your opinion!

Commenting is disabled for this entry.
If you feel there is still something worth mentioning about this entry please contact the author or the site admin.

Ask a Question

You Report

Do you have another point of view, photos, audio, video or more information about a story?

Top Stories

Most Read

  1. KELLNER: New Apple mouse really is 'Magic'
  2. EXCLUSIVE: Rare virus poses new threat to troops
  3. Parents buying homes for kids at college
  4. EDITORIAL: Too scared to recognize terrorism
  5. Deer dies after leap into D.C. zoo lion exhibit
More Top Stories »
  1. Federal Reserve opposed as big bank savior by odd allies
  2. Court refuses to halt sniper's execution
  3. House OKs health reform bill
  4. PRUDEN: Fatal reluctance to see evil
  5. Inside the Beltway

Most Shared

  1. KELLNER: New Apple mouse really is 'Magic'
  2. PRUDEN: Fatal reluctance to see evil
  3. Deer dies after leap into D.C. zoo lion exhibit
  4. EDITORIAL: Too scared to recognize terrorism
  5. Defense nominee won't reveal potential conflicts
More Top Stories »
  1. 'Fuzzy math' could drive health bill cost higher
  2. EXCLUSIVE: Rare virus poses new threat to troops
  3. Parents buying homes for kids at college
  4. Sinking dollar fuels new gold rush
  5. 'Anti-vaccine' attitude hampers H1N1 effort

Most Commented

  1. PRUDEN: Fatal reluctance to see evil
  2. EDITORIAL: Too scared to recognize terrorism
  3. 'Fuzzy math' could drive health bill cost higher
  4. Defense nominee won't reveal potential conflicts
  5. Army chief wary of backlash against Muslim soldiers
More Top Stories »
  1. Health bill faces roadblocks in Senate
  2. EDITORIAL: Mr. Obama, stay away from this wall
  3. Lieberman vows probe of Hood rampage
  4. Jihadists in the military
  5. 'Anti-vaccine' attitude hampers H1N1 effort

Listen to Washington Times Radio

  • America's Morning News

    with John McCaslin and Melanie Morgan

Blogs & Columns

  • POTUS Notes

    New Dem talking point on Obama approval doesn't wash

  • The Back Story

    12 arrested at Pelosi's office

  • Belief Blog

    New Vatican constitution released

  • Out of Context

    Foods that might kill libido

  • Technology

    Facebook wins round against phishing spammer

  • On the Fly

    United lifts some 'award' blocking

  • Redskins 360

    Zorn on radio

  • Tara's Two Cents

    On their way to summer vacation..

  • SNOBlog

    Beyond 'Woody'

Videos

Advertising Links
TWT Store
  • e-edition
  • Print Edition
  • Weekly Washington Times
TWT Affiliates
  • Middle East Times
  • Golf
  • UPI
  • Arbor Ballroom
  • Washington Times Global
  • About TWT
  • Press Room
  • F.A.Q.
  • Work for TWT
  • Advertise
  • Sponsors
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site Map

All site contents © Copyright 2009 The Washington Times, LLC.