Humbaba, 2009

Born in Germany during the period of the fall of the Third Reich, Anselm Kiefer, like other artists of his generation, and perhaps more so, has felt a responsibility to reconsider German history of the twentieth century, after nearly three decades of embarrassed silence. He has done so utilizing above all pictorial language and grafting this practice onto both the national trunk of German expressionism and the earlier romantic sensibility of nineteenth-century northern European artists. The handling of material in his large paintings is expressionistic—the paint mixed with varnish, ashes, and other substances, until it verges on the visual impact of high relief.