Lot Essay
Between 1912 and 1913 Ludwig Meidner created a series of urban landscapes which contain powerful and disturbing images reflecting the social, artistic, philosophical and emotional upheaval of Germany on the brink of the First World War. Meidner himself declared: "The oil paintings of those pre-war years, especially those from 1912-1913, have remained my best and most characteristic work to date and made my name known in later years" (Letter to Franz Landsberger, 21 Feb. 1934).
Writing in 1964, Meidner's retrospective description of the circumstances in which he painted these apocalyptic landscapes of 1912 is still vivid with creative frenzy: "That was a summer unlike any other, in the brooding, lowering metropolis of Berlin, high up on the sixth floor of a modest apartment house in Friedenau ... It was a strange and doom-laden time for me as no other ever was. I was charged with energy, full of mighty plans: I had faith in a magnificent future. I had made a home for myself under the blistering hot slate roof, in a cheap studio ... Food was a minor matter and I did not crave it, but sailcloth, bought cheap in the Wertheim department store, seemed the most valuable thing there was. I was in love with that canvas, which I stretched and grounded myself, and I went so far as to kiss it with trembling lips before painting those ominous landscapes ... I did not paint from life, but what my imagination told me to paint ... Bathed in sweat, I felt like a heavy-jowled hound careering along in a wild chase, mile after mile, to find his master - represented, in my case, by a finished oil painting, replete with apocalyptic doom. I feared those visions, although the finished products gave me a strange, warm feeling of satisfaction, a slightly satanic joy." (Ludwig Meidner, "Ein denkwürdiger Sommer", Der Monat, 16, no. 191, August 1964, p. 75.)
The Italian Futurist exhibition held in the Spring of 1912 at the Galerie Der Sturm - their first in Germany - proved to be a crucial event in Meidner's artistic development. Works by Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Luigi Russolo and Gino Severini were all included. Apokalyptische Landschaft clearly shows how Meidner re-interpreted the Futurist use of fracturing forms and diagonal lines of force, used to similar effect in Brennende Stadt of 1913 housed in the Saint Louis Art Museum (see Fig. 1). Both works display Meidner's move away from the morbid coloration of his first apocalyptic landscapes to the new fiery tones to which he turned to convey his urgent images of death and destruction. Indeed, the present work illustrates perfectly the "splintering, exploding, collapsing quality of Meidner's modern metropolis" (Carol S. Eliel, The Apocalyptic Landscapes of Ludwig Meidner, Los Angeles, 1989, p. 45) in which "the destructive forces depicted in the image are overwhelming. The sky is fractured into hundreds of pieces and terrified figures flee from the destruction" (op. cit.).
Meidner's apocalyptic landscapes have frequently been described as prophetic of the coming European war, and the tensions of the summer of 1912 seem to have aroused Meidner into a particularly restless mood: "In the summer of 1912 I once more had oil paints and lunch. I unloaded my obsessions onto canvas day and night - Judgement Days, world's ends, and gibbets of skulls; for in those days the great universal storm was already baring its teeth and casting its glaring yellow shadow across my whimpering brush-hand" (Ludwig Meidner, "Mein Leben" in L. Brieger, Ludwig Meidner, Leipzig, 1919).
It was not unusual for German artists of this period to use both sides of their canvases and the self-portrait on the verso of the present work is one of many which Meidner painted in conjunction with his apocalpytic landscapes. He was so personally involved in the theme of his apopcalpytic landscapes that he often appears in them, such as on the reverse of the St Louis painting, and in Revolution (Barrikadenkampf), 1912, housed in the Nationalgalerie, Berlin.
Considered his most important works, examples of Meidner's apocalyptic landscapes are now housed in many of the world's leading museums, including the Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Münster, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart. The present picture has not previously been exhibited having hung in a discreet English collection for many years.
Writing in 1964, Meidner's retrospective description of the circumstances in which he painted these apocalyptic landscapes of 1912 is still vivid with creative frenzy: "That was a summer unlike any other, in the brooding, lowering metropolis of Berlin, high up on the sixth floor of a modest apartment house in Friedenau ... It was a strange and doom-laden time for me as no other ever was. I was charged with energy, full of mighty plans: I had faith in a magnificent future. I had made a home for myself under the blistering hot slate roof, in a cheap studio ... Food was a minor matter and I did not crave it, but sailcloth, bought cheap in the Wertheim department store, seemed the most valuable thing there was. I was in love with that canvas, which I stretched and grounded myself, and I went so far as to kiss it with trembling lips before painting those ominous landscapes ... I did not paint from life, but what my imagination told me to paint ... Bathed in sweat, I felt like a heavy-jowled hound careering along in a wild chase, mile after mile, to find his master - represented, in my case, by a finished oil painting, replete with apocalyptic doom. I feared those visions, although the finished products gave me a strange, warm feeling of satisfaction, a slightly satanic joy." (Ludwig Meidner, "Ein denkwürdiger Sommer", Der Monat, 16, no. 191, August 1964, p. 75.)
The Italian Futurist exhibition held in the Spring of 1912 at the Galerie Der Sturm - their first in Germany - proved to be a crucial event in Meidner's artistic development. Works by Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Luigi Russolo and Gino Severini were all included. Apokalyptische Landschaft clearly shows how Meidner re-interpreted the Futurist use of fracturing forms and diagonal lines of force, used to similar effect in Brennende Stadt of 1913 housed in the Saint Louis Art Museum (see Fig. 1). Both works display Meidner's move away from the morbid coloration of his first apocalyptic landscapes to the new fiery tones to which he turned to convey his urgent images of death and destruction. Indeed, the present work illustrates perfectly the "splintering, exploding, collapsing quality of Meidner's modern metropolis" (Carol S. Eliel, The Apocalyptic Landscapes of Ludwig Meidner, Los Angeles, 1989, p. 45) in which "the destructive forces depicted in the image are overwhelming. The sky is fractured into hundreds of pieces and terrified figures flee from the destruction" (op. cit.).
Meidner's apocalyptic landscapes have frequently been described as prophetic of the coming European war, and the tensions of the summer of 1912 seem to have aroused Meidner into a particularly restless mood: "In the summer of 1912 I once more had oil paints and lunch. I unloaded my obsessions onto canvas day and night - Judgement Days, world's ends, and gibbets of skulls; for in those days the great universal storm was already baring its teeth and casting its glaring yellow shadow across my whimpering brush-hand" (Ludwig Meidner, "Mein Leben" in L. Brieger, Ludwig Meidner, Leipzig, 1919).
It was not unusual for German artists of this period to use both sides of their canvases and the self-portrait on the verso of the present work is one of many which Meidner painted in conjunction with his apocalpytic landscapes. He was so personally involved in the theme of his apopcalpytic landscapes that he often appears in them, such as on the reverse of the St Louis painting, and in Revolution (Barrikadenkampf), 1912, housed in the Nationalgalerie, Berlin.
Considered his most important works, examples of Meidner's apocalyptic landscapes are now housed in many of the world's leading museums, including the Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Münster, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart. The present picture has not previously been exhibited having hung in a discreet English collection for many years.