COMMONWEALTH ASSOCATION FOR EDUCATION,
ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT
ISSN NO 2322-0147
VOLUME 2 ISSUE 5
MAY 2014
One of the most famous sculptors of German
Expressionism -Ernst Barlach
INDEXED WITH PARIS, DAIS.NET, DRJI, WORLDCAT, EBSCO-USA, J-GATE
(EDITOR-IN-CHIEF)
DR MUJIBUL HASAN SIDDIQUI
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION,
ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY,
ALIGARH-202002,
UTTAR PRADESH,
INDIA
website: www.ocwjournalonline.com
Excellence International Journal of Education and
Research (Multi- subject journal)
Excellence International Journal Of Education And Research VOLUME 2
ISSUE 5
ISSN 2322-0147
One of the most famous sculptors of German Expressionism -Ernst
Barlach
By
Ramkrishna Ghosh
[Ph.D Research Scholar]
Mewar University
Gangrar, Chittorgarh (Rajasthan)
EMAIL ID ramakrishna_ghosh@rediffmail.com
Abstract
Ernst Barlach was a German Expressionist sculptor, printmaker and writer. He is mostly known
for his sculptures protesting against the war. Barlach studied art in Hamburg, then in the Royal
Art School in Dresden, and later in Paris. After his studies he worked for some time as a sculptor
in Hamburg and as a teacher at a school for ceramics. Before the World War I Barlach was a
patriotic supporter of the war, but after three months of service he was discharged and returned
home as a pacifist. Barlach’s fame increased after the war. He received a lot of awards and
became a member of the prestigious Prussian Art Academy in 1919 and Munich Art Academy in
1925. However, in 1936 Barlach’s works were confiscated as “degenerative art” and Barlach
himself was prohibited from working as a sculptor. This rejection was reflected in his final works
before his death on 24 October in 1938.
Keywords: degenerate art, confiscate, depress, Gothic Art, Romanesque Art.
Ernst Barlach was a German Expressionist sculptor, printmaker and writer. He was an
outstanding sculptor of the Expressionist movement whose style was often called “modern
Gothic”. He was born on the 2nd of January, 1870 in Wedel (Germany) as the oldest of the four
sons of Johanna Luise Barlach and Dr George Barlach. He is mostly known for his sculptures
protesting against the war. Barlach was an extremely influential artist. Like many in the
Expressionist movement, he was interested in creating "total artworks" that united disciplines to
explore the human condition from various perspectives.
He attended primary school in Ratzeburg. It was during this period that his father died, early in
1884.Barlach studied from 1888 to 1891 at the Gewerbeschule Hamburg. Due to his artistic
talent, he continued his studies at the Königliche Akademie der bildenden Künste zu Dresden
(Royal Art School Dresden) as a student of Robert Diez between 1891 and 1895. He created his
first major sculpture during this time, Die Krautpflückerin (The Herb Plucker). He continued his
studies for one more year in Paris at the Académie Julian, but remained critical of the German
tendency to copy the style of French artists. Nevertheless he returned to Paris again for a few
months in 1897 to undertake further studies.
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After his studies, Barlach worked for some time as a sculptor in Hamburg and Altona, working
mainly in an Art Nouveau style. He produced illustrations for the Art Nouveau magazine Jugend
1897-1902, and made sculpture in a style close to Art Nouveau, including some ceramic statues.
Afterwards, he also worked as a teacher at a school for ceramics.
However, the lack of commercial success of his works depressed Barlach. To lighten up, he
decided to travel for eight weeks together with his brother Nikolaus and to visit his brother Hans
in Russia. This trip to Russia in 1906 was one of the greatest influences on him and his artistic
style. His artistic work was influenced greatly by this trip. Also during his travels in Russia his
son Nikolaus was born on August 20, 1906, starting a two-year fight with the mother, Rosa
Schwab, for the custody of the child, which Barlach was finally granted.
The trip to Russia was without a doubt the biggest event of his professional life. According to
Polyakova, Barlach felt alienated and depressed in 1906 when his brother, who was living in
Kharkov, invited him to visit. It was a time when Russia was still aching from the bloody events
of the 1905 revolution, and there were thousands of displaced, impoverished people begging in
big cities across the country.
These people had a deep effect on Barlach, so deep that he felt compelled to draw them and do
wood carvings of them. Later in his life he wrote: "I was not depicting Russian beggars and
farmers, I was depicting all of us on Earth as prisoners in a cell, crying out. In Europe that cannot
be seen."
After returning from Russia, Barlach's financial situation improved considerably, as he received
a fixed salary from the art dealer Paul Cassirer in exchange for his sculptures. The formative
experiences in Russia and the financial security helped him to develop his own style, focusing on
the faces and hands of the people in his sculptures and reducing the other parts of the figures to a
minimum. He also began to make wood carvings and bronzes of figures swathed in heavy
drapery like those in early Gothic art, and in dramatic attitudes expressive of powerful emotions
and a yearning for spiritual ecstasy.
Barlach began to carve in wood in 1907, and it became the principal material in which he worked
throughout his life. He drew principally on the life of small German towns for his imagery, and
his approach to the material recalls the simplicity and strength of expression found in
Romanesque and Gothic sculpture of northern Europe. His works are only of single figures, and
they depict man's loneliness, fear, and suffering. He often depicted Russian beggars and farmers,
symbolizing the difficulty of human existence.
Barlach used the human body to depict expression, saying in 1911, “My mother tongue is the
human body . . . the object through which or in which man lives, suffers, enjoys himself, feels,
thinks.” Unlike many sculptors of his time, Barlach believed that a clothed body could be more
revealing than an unclothed figure, and he used garments to help express his themes. The
Avenger represents the artist’s response to the outbreak of World War I, which was initially one
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of relative enthusiasm. The concept of “avenger” is conveyed very simply, yet extremely
effectively. The force of the man’s forward movement is emphasized through the work’s
horizontal orientation, its slanted base, and the way the cloak flows back against the figure in
diagonal folds. He carries a weapon that can only be used in hand-to-hand combat, and raises it
to strike with a gesture that is at the same time heroic and tragic. His facial expression is difficult
to define, reflecting the ambiguous nature of war, which, whether or not it is thought to be
justified, is always horrific. Thus the sculpture represents not only the physical experience of
war, but the psychological conflict as well. Barlach’s enthusiasm for the war quickly faded and
he ultimately saw it as evil and shameful.
Barlach also experimented with graphic art and playwriting, and his work in all media is notable
for its preoccupation with the sufferings of humanity. Barlach's graphics are just as powerful and
bleak, with titles such as "The Invisible," "Abandoned" and "Love and Suffering." Even
lithographs with bright titles such as "Joy -- God's Wonderful Gift" are more haunting than
uplifting, with long black lines stretching and swirling to the horizon as in Edvard Munch's "The
Scream."
Barlach's graphic work, both woodcuts and lithographs, reveals the same vital energy and bold
composition found in his best sculpture. His work includes the Modern Dance of Death and
illustrations for the writings of Goethe and Schiller.
In the years before World War I, Barlach was a patriotic and enthusiastic supporter of the war,
awaiting a new artistic age from the war. This support for the war can also be seen in his works,
as for example the statue Der Rächer (The Avenger), from December 1914. His awaited new
artistic age came for him when he volunteered to join the war between 1915 and 1916 as an
infantry soldier. After three months of service he was discharged due to a heart ailment,
returning as a pacifist and a staunch opponent of war. The horror of the war influenced all of his
subsequent works.
In 1917 Barlach had his first exhibition at Paul Cassirer's in Berlin. In 1919 the sculptor was
admitted to the 'Preußische Akademie der Künste' in Berlin as a full member. During the
following years Barlach produced numerous wood carvings, including one on Goethe's
'Walpurgisnacht'. In 1928 Barlach published his autobiography entitled 'Ein selbsterzähltes
Leben' ('A Selftold Life'). In 1930 a comprehensive exhibition of Barlach's sculptures and
graphic works took place at the 'Preussische Akademie der Künste' in Berlin.
Barlach achieved great fame in the 1920s and early 1930s, when he executed, among other
works, the celebrated war memorials in Magdeburg and Hamburg and the religious figures for
the Church of St. Katherine in Lübeck (all in Germany). Although his work was removed from
German museums under the Nazi regime and categorized as “degenerate art,” after World War II
his talent was once again recognized.
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Barlach’s greatest works are his war memorials, and he is the sculptor who most successfully
captured the terror of war in the 20th century. His best-known memorials are the Hovering Angel
(1927) in Güstrow, the Champion of the Spirit (1928) in Mannheim, and the Memorial for the
Dead of World War I (1928) in Magdeburg.
He also worked for the German journal Simplicissimus, and started to produce some literature. In
addition to his sculpture, Barlach also wrote eight Expressionist dramas, two novels and an
autobiography. He also illustrated some of his own plays. In 1924 he even won an important
German literary prize. But everything changed when Hitler took power in 1933, ushering in
cultural policies that promoted ideas of Nordic racial superiority. Barlach’s humanism was
considered at odds with new Germanic values, and his works were removed from museums and
in some cases destroyed. He was forbidden to exhibit.
In 1936, Barlach's works were confiscated during an exhibition together with the works of Käthe
Kollwitz and Wilhelm Lehmbruck, and the majority of his remaining works were confiscated as
"degenerate art", for example the Güstrower Ehrenmal (Güstrow cenotaph) and the Hamburger
Ehrenmal (Hamburg cenotaph). Barlach himself was prohibited from working as a sculptor, and
his membership in the art academies was canceled. This rejection is reflected in his final works
before his death from heart failure on 24 October 1938 in a Rostock hospital, Mecklenburg. He is
buried in the cemetery of Ratzeburg.
Conclusion
The essence of Ernst Barlach’s art lies in his ability to express his devotion to and love for his
fellow human beings in drawings and sculptures. His work is seen as symbolising an era of
upheaval. Although Barlach first greeted the outbreak of war in 1914 with enthusiasm, he later
became a pacifist on account of his personal experiences. The artworks that he produced after
1918 frequently express a deep spirituality, which is manifested in more tranquil forms and
unified contours.
References
 Barlach, Ernst.A Selftold Life by Ernst Barlach (Sep 1990), Publisher: General Pub Co
Ltd (September 1990).
 Barron, Stephanie. Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Corporate Author), “German
Expressionism, 1915-1925: The Second Generation”, Publisher: Prestel Pub; First
Edition edition (December 1988), ISBN-10: 3791308742, ISBN-13: 978-3791308746, pp
- 11, 12, 104.
 Barron, Stephanie. “German Expressionist Prints and Drawings: Essays”, Publisher: Los
Angeles County Museum (June 1989), v 1, ISBN-10: 3791309749, ISBN-13: 9783791309743, pp- 9-10, 32, 43-61, 154, 179,186, 203 n.6.
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 Barron, Stephanie, “German Expressionist Sculpture”, Publisher: Los Angeles County
Museum of Art/University of Chicago Press (1985 – 02), ISBN 10: 0226038211, ISBN
13: 780226038216.p- 60-70.
 Barlach, Ernst. The poor relation: Drama in twelve scenesby Ernst Barlach (2001),
Publisher: Penumbra Press (2001).
 Modlin, Yvonne. "Barlach, Ernst" In The Dictionary of Art. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1996. v 3, p. 242. ISBN 0-19-517068-7.
 Paret, Peter. An Artist Against the Third Reich: Ernst Barlach, 1933–38. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2002.
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