German Lineages of Salvation

Anselm Kiefer

1975 · Watercolor, gouache, and ballpoint pen on paper · Modern and Contemporary Art

This landscape is based on one of Kiefer’s photographs of northernmost Norway, which the artist visited in 1974. Referencing historical landscape painting, the work presents a panoramic view onto which are inscribed two lineages of German-language thinkers: ascending the rainbow are G. W. F. Hegel, Ludwig Feuerbach, and Karl Marx; and running through the murky river are Arthur Schopenhauer, Richard Wagner, Friedrich Nietzsche, Carl Jung, and Martin Heidegger. Both lines of thinkers believed in the idea of redemption, the former through the emergence of an extraordinary leader and the latter through individual recognition of one’s being.

Artist

Anselm Kiefer

Date

1975

Medium

Watercolor, gouache, and ballpoint pen on paper

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

Denise and Andrew Saul Fund, 1995