In “Rapunzel,” Anselm Keifer uses very specific details in each part of his painting. Although the main focus is the building, there are also intricate features that show his efforts into painting on top of the photograph. Rapunzel was originally a photograph of Kiefer’s sculptures or buildings, the Seven Heavenly Palaces. The Seven Heavenly Palaces are seven towers built by Kiefer to represent a sense of chaos that had occurred. According to Kiefer, “What interests me is the transformation, not the monument. I don’t construct ruins, but I feel ruins are monuments when things show themselves. A ruin is not a catastrophe. It is the moment when things starts again,” (Kiefer: An artist with monumental force.” International Herald Tribune.). Kiefer constructed the Seven Heavenly Palaces to look the way they do, because they represent a sense of chaos and are not ruins.
Seven Heavenly Palaces
i also like the fact that he is an artist who explores different fields rather than sticking to one frame. he uses materials on canvas to create texture such as straw.
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he also produces abstract sculptures created from inspiration of his past.
I then went into detail of artist research using the internet as my primary source to find out where his works are produced, what the inspiration is and a bit about the artist himself.
Anselm Kiefer was born on March 8, 1945, in Donaueschingen. He is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Joseph Beuys during the 1970s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan have played a role in developing Kiefer's themes of German history and the horror of the Holocaust, as have the theological concepts of Kabbalah.
In his entire body of work, Kiefer argues with the past and addresses taboo and controversial issues from recent history. Themes from Nazi rule are particularly reflected in his work; for instance, the painting "Margarethe" (oil and straw on canvas) was inspired by Paul Celan's well-known poem "Todesfuge" ("Death Fugue").
His works are characterised by a dull/musty, nearly depressive, destructive style and are often done in large scale formats. In most of his works, the use of photography as an output surface is prevalent and earth and other raw materials of nature are often incorporated. It is also characteristic of his work to find signatures and/or names of people of historical importance, legendary figures or places particularly pregnant with history. All of these are encoded sigils through which Kiefer seeks to process the past; this has resulted in his work being linked with a style called "New Symbolism."
