Universal Barlach
Dennis, James M.
Universal Barlach Ernst Barlach, by Alfred Werner. McGraw-Hill. 176 pp. $9.95. Reviewed by James M. Dennis The promotion of a book, especial-A ly of an art book, may understandably...
...In this sense he became spiritually as well as stylistically united with Kaethe Kollwitz...
...Non-figurative sculpture has been around for a long time now, and America already had a stake in it by the end of the Thirties, with Smith, Calder, and Rivera...
...Universal Barlach Ernst Barlach, by Alfred Werner...
...They included Kaethe Kollwitz, Leopold von Koenig, and Gerhard Marcks, who remained loyal to Barlach and attended his funeral in Guestrow, Mechlenburg, in the fall of 1938...
...Judging from the few pages that touch upon Barlach's long, unfinished novels and the seven completed plays, little can be said about them except that they make for difficult reading: rambling, expression-istic, and—according to recent critics— somehow anticipatory of the theater of the absurd...
...Simply to be there was in itself heroic, as is dramatized through their personal accounts...
...Although mainly a commemorative biography, Werner's book includes three chapters dealing with the motivations and materials of Barlach's literary accomplishments, his graphics, and his sculpture...
...Of utmost importance to his art was a soul-searching melancholia through which he was to create a cogent universality of form and meaning...
...The book immediately establishes a basic distinction between Barlach and most of the German Expressionists, who were often extroverted cosmopolitans...
...Both confronted life and death in prints, drawings, and sculpture that allow for religious connotations with only an occasional scriptural reference...
...In conclusion Werner briefly comments on the publication and exhibition of works by Barlach in the United States...
...John B. Flan-nagan, Gaston Lachaise, Eli Nadel-man, Carl Milles, Isamu Noguchi, and David Smith produced various styles of sculpture, any one of which might have inspired the "Social Realists," whoever they might have been...
...Reviewed by James M. Dennis The promotion of a book, especial-A ly of an art book, may understandably exaggerate the scope of an author's purpose...
...Throughout his career Barlach remained an independent "provincial recluse...
...For a pictorial epilogue, a selection of Barlach's drawings and prints is reproduced at the end of the text...
...He also originated figures in clay, and two major monuments, the angel of Guestrow and the Geistkaempfer for Kiel, were cast in bronze...
...Determination of direct influences and a discussion of Barlach's place in Twentieth Century art belong to a thorough investigation of his sculpture...
...Unnecessary worry is expressed over the relevance of Barlach to a "cool" generation accustomed to increasingly abstract sculpture...
...Figures, either drawn or carved, are only incidentally ethnic and by means of resourcefully generalized forms they convey the artist's identification with timeless human conflicts...
...When mention is made of an example of sculpture, it is usually in relation to a critical episode in the sculptor's struggle to maintain his freedom from political interference...
...Werner's chapter dedicated to sculpture is most useful in its discussion of Barlach's techniques...
...The rather vague and unfortunate suggestion that "Social Realists" of the Thirties chose Barlach over Gutson Borglum as a "spiritual brother" places far too much importance on Barlach and ignores other alternatives in America...
...Nevertheless, the convention-bound, but bold, style of Barlach found substantial appreciation here before and after the war...
...While it is the first, overdue monograph on Barlach (1870-1938) to appear in English and to be addressed to American readers, its treatment of the artist and his art is but modestly "full-length...
...Carving was not his only approach...
...Little in the way of direct analysis is intended for either group of works...
...He also gives recognition to the few German artists who had the courage to stay and stand up to the Nazis...
...Until a truly full-length study appears, however, Werner's book will remain an affectionate introduction to Barlach's images of man...
...Ernst Barlach, for example, is presented as "the first full-length treatment of this major artist to appear in the United States...
...A brief account of Barlach's development as a draftsman ends with a suggestion that he belongs categorically to surrealism as opposed to realism...
...Less autobiographic than Kaethe Kollwitz, Barlach found a means of universal expression in the ageless anonymity of the peasant...
...In approximately fifty pages of text Alfred Werner provides a sympathetic testimony to his appreciation of a beautiful human being, one who expressed himself as an artist for all mankind...
...Barlach's achievement is well surveyed in photographs of his sculpture distributed as large plates throughout the book...
...Werner provides a frightening reminder of the cultural suppression attempted by the Hitler regime...
Vol. 31 • August 1967 • No. 8
