Apocalyptic Vision by Ludwig Meidner

Art work details

Original Title :

Apocalyptische Vision

Year of production :

1912

Artist:

Ludwig Meidner

Medium :

Oil painting

Materials:

Oil paint, Canvas

Dimensions :

height: 72.8 cms; width: 88.4 cms

Credit Line :

Purchased from Mr Siegfried Oppenheimer with assistance from the MGC/V&A Purchase Grant Fund

Copyright :

© Ludwig Meidner-Archiv, Jüdiches Museum der Stadt Frankfurt am Main

Tags:

Nudity, Death, Meidner

This is the earliest of Meidner’s apocalyptic landscapes, a series of paintings he produced in his Berlin studio during the summer of 1912. These paintings of burning cities and fleeing people, coming just before the outbreak of the First World War seemed to be an uncanny prediction of what was to come.

Meidner shows a landscape breaking apart, with earth rising up, dead vegetation and distorted limbs of the three naked victims. Behind are the ominous signs of powers uncontrolled by man, the smoking volcano, blackened sun and flaring comet.