Gebirgslandschaft (Mountainscape)

Artistically quoting the Germanic traditions of landscape painting, Gebirgslandschaft is a rare and early work by Anselm Kiefer that depicts a characteristically German mountainscape. Relating to the monumentallandscape paintings of the 19th Century Romantic period in German art, this work is reminiscent of the art of Casper David Friedrich or Edvard Munch. In clear contrast to Kiefer's later works which depict an infertile wasteland, a reference to the wartime policy in which the Nazi troops would burn the earth and render it useless for growing crops (Scorched Earth), Gebirgslandschaft shows a fertile and lush landscape. The vertiginous and dramatic perspective onto the rocky mountains in the background, is contrasted by the soft and earthy colour pallet used to depict the lush nature in the foreground. An idealistic scenery that is disrupted by seven intersecting black arrows. Like spearheads these arrows slice through the painting, a symbol for the imprint that has been left onto German culture by the Nazi period. In another way we might also abstract that the arrows allude to wartime cartography and the movement of troops as indicated by arrows on wartime maps. A cautionary warning against the appeal of the seductive and deceiving force with which the Nazi regime instrumentalised art as a weapon. Acknowledging this imprint that has been left on German culture, from which he suggests it is unable to disassociate itself, Kiefer investigates the negligible, inherent manipulability of art and culture in his work.