ERNST BARLACHA work more spiritual in its expression is
the War Monument (FIG. 35-45), which the German sculptor
Ernst Barlach(1870–1938) created for the cathedral in his home-
town of Güstrow in 1927. Working often in wood, Barlach sculpted
single figures usually dressed in flowing robes and portrayed in
strong, simple poses that embody deep human emotions and ex-
periences such as grief, vigilance, or self-comfort. Barlach’s works
combine sharp, smoothly planed forms with intense expression.
The cast-bronze hovering figure of his War Monumentis one of the
most poignant memorials of World War I. Unlike traditional war
memorials depicting heroic military figures, often engaged in battle,
the hauntingly symbolic figure that Barlach created speaks to the
experience of all caught in the conflict of war. The floating human
form, suspended above a tomb inscribed with the dates 1914–1918
(and later also 1939–1945), suggests a dying soul at the moment
when it is about to awaken to everlasting life—the theme of death
and transfiguration. The rigid economy of surfaces concentrates
attention on the simple but expressive head. So powerful was this
sculpture that the Nazis had it removed from the cathedral in 1937
and melted down for ammunition. Luckily, a friend hid another ver-
sion Barlach made. A Protestant parish in Cologne purchased this
surviving cast, from which bronzeworkers made a new cast for the
Güstrow cathedral.
Surrealism
The exuberantly aggressive momentum of the Dada movement that
emerged during World War I was of short duration. By 1924, with
the publication in France of the First Surrealist Manifesto,most of
the artists associated with Dada joined the Surrealismmovement
and its determined exploration of ways to express in art the world of
dreams and the unconscious. Not surprisingly, the Surrealists incor-
porated many of the Dadaists’ improvisational techniques. They be-
lieved these methods important for engaging the elements of fantasy
and activating the unconscious forces that lie deep within every hu-
man being. The Surrealists sought to explore the inner world of the
psyche, the realm of fantasy and the unconscious. Inspired in part by
the ideas of the psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, the
Surrealists had a special interest in the nature of dreams. They
viewed dreams as occurring at the level connecting all human con-
sciousness and as constituting the arena in which people could move
beyond their environment’s constricting forces to reengage with the
deeper selves society had long suppressed. In the words of André
Breton, one of the leading Surrealist thinkers:
Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain
forms of association heretofore neglected, in the omnipotence of
dreams, in the undirected play of thought....I believe in the future
resolution of the states of dream and reality, in appearance so con-
tradictory, in a sort of absolute reality, or surreality.^30
Thus, the Surrealists’ dominant motivation was to bring the as-
pects of outer and inner “reality” together into a single position, in
much the same way life’s seemingly unrelated fragments combine in
the vivid world of dreams. The projection in visible form of this new
conception required new techniques of pictorial construction. The
Surrealists adapted some Dada devices and invented new methods
such as automatic writing (spontaneous writing using free associa-
tion), not so much to reveal a world without meaning as to provoke
reactions closely related to subconscious experience.
Surrealism developed along two lines. In Naturalistic Surrealism,
artists present recognizable scenes that seem to have metamorphosed
into a dream or nightmare image. The artists Salvador Dalí (FIG. 35-49)
and René Magritte (FIG. 35-50) were the most famous practitioners
of this variant of Surrealism. In contrast, some artists gravitated
toward an interest in Biomorphic Surrealism.In Biomorphic (life
forms) Surrealism,automatism—the creation of art without con-
scious control—predominated. Biomorphic Surrealists such as Joan
Miró (FIG. 35-52) produced largely abstract compositions, although
the imagery sometimes suggests organisms or natural forms.GIORGIO DE CHIRICOThe Italian painter Giorgio de
Chirico (1888–1978) produced emphatically ambiguous works
that position him as a precursor of Surrealism. De Chirico’s paint-
ings of cityscapes and shop windows were part of a movement called
Pittura Metafisica,or Metaphysical Painting. Returning to Italy after
study in Munich, de Chirico found hidden reality revealed through
strange juxtapositions, such as those seen on late autumn afternoons
in the city of Turin, when the long shadows of the setting sun trans-
formed vast open squares and silent public monuments into what
the painter called “metaphysical towns.” De Chirico translated this
vision into paint in works such as Melancholy and Mystery of a Street
(FIG. 35-46), where the spaces and buildings evoke a disquieting
sense of foreboding. The choice of the term “metaphysical” to describe
de Chirico’s paintings suggests that these images transcend their phys-
ical appearances.Melancholy and Mystery of a Street,for all of its clar-
ity and simplicity, takes on a rather sinister air. Only a few inexplicable
and incongruous elements punctuate the scene’s solitude—a smallEurope, 1920 to 1945 94335-45Ernst Barlach,War Monument,Cathedral, Güstrow,
Germany, 1927. Bronze.
In this World War I memorial, a human form floating above a tomb
suggests a dying soul at the moment when it is about to awaken to
everlasting life. The Nazis melted down the piece for ammunition.