Apokalyptische Landschaft

During 1912 and 1913 Meidner created a series of urban landscapes and relating drawings in which he reflected the social, artistic, philosophical, and emotional state of Germany on the brink of war. His own retrospect assessment put these works at the pinacle of his oeuvre: "The oil paintings of those prewar years, especially those from 1912/1913, have remained my best and most characteristic work to date and made my name known in later years. (Meidner in a letter to Franz Landsberger, 21 February 1934.) Due to the influence of Nietzsche, whose publication 'Thus spoke Zarathustra' was widly read at the time, the undercurrent theme in Expressionist art became the belief in creation through destruction. At the eve of the First World War, the notion of apocalypse was maybe best illustrated in Ludwig Meidner's Apocalyptic landscapes. The leitmotiv seems to be found in the Nietzschen distinction of the Appolonian versus Dionysian. In the present work Meidner depicts the Dionysian man who takes matters into his hands and hides in the bushes of the foreground, while in the background the apocalypse, the Nietzschian 'pillar of fire' blazes. (C. Eliel, The Apocalyptic landscapes of Ludwig Meidner, Los Angeles 1989.)