Barlach, Ernst (1870–1938). German sculptor, printmaker, and writer, a leading figure of Expressionism. He was born at Wedel, near Hamburg, the son of a doctor, and studied at the School of Arts and Crafts in Hamburg, 1888–91, the Dresden Academy, 1891–5, and the Académie Julian, Paris, 1895–6. After his return to Germany he spent the next decade working variously in and around Hamburg and in Berlin. During this period he worked as much on ceramics as on sculpture in a fairly derivative Art Nouveau style, but a turning-point in his career came in 1906 when he went to Russia to visit a brother who was working for an industrial company in the Ukraine. The vast empty landscape and the sturdy Russian peasants made a great impact on Barlach, as his sketchbooks show. These hardworking people, with their simple faith, symbolized for him ‘the human condition in its nakedness between Heaven and Earth’ and helped inspire him to create a massively powerful figure style through which he expressed a wide range of emotion. He was influenced also by medieval German carving, with which he recognized both a spiritual and a technical affinity—he preferred to carve in heavy, close-grained woods, but even when his figures were modelled in clay and cast in bronze they retain the broad planes and sharp edges typical of woodcarving.

In 1907 Barlach became financially secure when he signed a contract with the Berlin dealer Paul Cassirer, agreeing to sell him his entire output for a fixed salary. In 1910 he moved to Güstrow, a small town near Rostock, where he was to spend the rest of his life, and by this time he had created his mature style, which changed little thereafter. His most characteristic works are massive, blocklike, heavily robed single figures or pairs of figures symbolizing some aspect of the human condition (The Solitary One, Kunsthalle, Hamburg, 1911). George Heard Hamilton writes that ‘Whether in wood or plaster the forms are sometimes so tightly compact that their emotional charge seems about to explode'. Barlach also produced several monuments commemorating the First World War and he was a prolific maker of lithographs and woodcuts, particularly of illustrations to his own plays. The first of these to appear was Der tote Tag (The dead day), published by Cassirer's Pan-Presse in Berlin in 1912; the text was accompanied by a separate portfolio of 27 lithographs. He published six more plays, the last in 1929; they are sombre works, typically showing the individual wrestling with the ties of the material world in search of God, but they sometimes have a grotesque humour not seen in his sculpture.

After the First World War (in which he served briefly in the army) Barlach was much honoured. He was made a member of the Berlin Academy in 1919, for example, and of the Munich Academy in 1925, and in 1924 was awarded the Kleist Prize (for literature). His autobiography, Ein selbsterzähltes Leben, was published in 1928 and his 60th birthday in 1930 was marked by a large exhibition of his work at the Berlin Academy. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, however, he was declared a degenerate artist; 381 of his works were confiscated from museums and his war memorials at Güstrow, Kiel, and Magdeburg were dismantled. In 1937 he wrote: ‘A pimp or a murderer is better off. He at least gets a legal hearing and can defend himself. But we are simply repudiated, and whenever possible purged.’ He died the following year. After the war, his memorial in Güstrow Cathedral was restored and a copy made for the Antoniterkirche in Cologne; it takes the form of a hovering bronze angel and is considered by many to be his most deeply spiritual work. There are museums dedicated to Barlach in Güstrow, Hamburg, and Ratzeburg. His collected writings have been published in three volumes (1956–9) and his letters in two volumes (1968–9).

Ernst Barlach

The German sculptor Ernst Barlach (1870-1938), working predominately in wood, created important figurative carvings in that medium.

Ernst Barlach was born in Wedel, a small town near Hamburg, the son of a physician. He studied at the Hamburg School of Applied Arts (1888-1891) and the Academy of Art in Dresden (1891-1895). He briefly attended the Académie Julian while residing in Paris (1895-1896), but his stay in France did not leave any apparent mark on his sculpture.

Returning to Germany in 1897, Barlach periodically sketched for the journals Jugend, Simplizissimus, and Die fliegende Blätter and taught ceramics. One of his earliest known pieces, the Cleopatra of 1904, suggests the strong Art Nouveau interest of the time. Barlach's first mature work came as a result of a trip to southern Russia in 1906. He transformed his drawings of Russian peasants into small ceramic pieces, rounding out the generally rough features of the beggars, villagers, and shepherds. His work caught the eye of the Berlin art dealer and publisher Paul Cassirer in 1907. Two years later Barlach won the Villa Romana Prize and a subsequent year in Florence. Upon his return to Germany in 1910, and with Cassirer's continued support, he settled in the rural village of Güstrow, only occasionally traveling to Berlin.

Barlach began to carve in wood in 1907, and it became the principal material in which he worked throughout his life. He drew principally on the life of small German towns for his imagery, and his approach to the material recalls the simplicity and strength of expression found in Romanesque and Gothic sculpture of northern Europe. His works are only of single figures, and they depict man's loneliness, fear, and suffering. This pessimism, often emphasized by the gesture of the hands and the visionary gaze of the eyes, was spiritually akin to the mood of the German expressionist painters, but he was never affiliated with the expressionist movement. Like the graphic artist Kathe Köllwitz, he remained apart from any avant-garde movement or style.

Barlach's hatred of the suffering and chaos of war was forecast in his Panic, Fright (1912) and the Abandoned Ones (1913). Like Daumier, Barlach depicted those who were left homeless by the conflagration. His themes remained constant, and he seldom altered his tendency to compose in a solid block form. His greatest works are his war memorials, and he is the sculptor who most successfully captured the terror of war in the 20th century. His best-known memorials are the Hovering Angel (1927) in Güstrow, the Champion of the Spirit (1928) in Mannheim, and the Memorial for the Dead of World War I (1928) in Magdeburg.

Barlach did not complete one ambitious commission, the facade figures for St. Catherine's Church in Lübeck (1930-1932), owing to the rise of the Nazis. Although he opposed the Nazis, he remained in Germany, where his work was condemned as degenerate; his Magdeburg and Güstrow memorials were removed. The continued persecution of the sculptor ultimately contributed to his death of heart failure in 1938.

Barlach's graphic work, both woodcuts and lithographs, reveals the same vital energy and bold composition found in his best sculpture. His work includes the Modern Dance of Death and illustrations for the writings of Goethe and Schiller. Barlach also illustrated some of his own plays.

Further Reading

The most important work on Barlach is the catalogue raisonné in German, Friedrich Schult, ed., Das plastiche Werk (1960). Schult also edited the catalogue raisonné of Barlach's graphic art, Das graphische Werk (1958). Two useful works in English are Alfred Werner, Ernst Barlach (1966), which provides a concise summary of and introduction to Barlach's sculpture, graphics, and dramatic pieces, and Carl Dietrich Carls, Ernst Barlach (1931; rev. ed. and trans. 1969), a good biographical study of the artist. □

Barlach, Ernst (b Wedel, nr. Hamburg, 2 Jan. 1870; d Rostock, 24 Oct. 1938). German sculptor, printmaker, and writer, a major figure of Expressionism. Until he reached his thirties Barlach was as much a ceramicist as a sculptor, working in a fairly derivative Art Nouveau style, but a turning point in his career came in 1906, when he visited Russia. The vast empty landscapes and the sturdy Russian peasants made a great impact on him; these hard-working people, with their simple faith, symbolized for him ‘the human condition in its nakedness between Heaven and Earth’ and helped inspire him to create a massively powerful figure style. He was influenced also by medieval German carving, with which he recognized both a spiritual and a technical affinity—he preferred to carve in heavy, close-grained woods, but even when his figures were modelled in clay and cast in bronze they retain the broad planes and sharp edges typical of woodcarving. In 1910 Barlach settled at Güstrow, a small town near Rostock, where he spent the rest of his life. By this time he had created his mature style, which changed little thereafter. His most characteristic works are massive, blocklike, heavily robed single figures or pairs of figures symbolizing some aspect of the human condition (The Solitary One, 1911, Kunsthalle, Hamburg). He also produced several monuments commemorating the First World War and he was a prolific maker of lithographs and woodcuts, particularly of illustrations to his own plays, of which he published seven; they are sombre works, typically showing the individual wrestling with the ties of the material world in search of God, but they sometimes have a grotesque humour not seen in his sculpture.

After the First World War (in which he served briefly in the army) Barlach was much honoured, but when the Nazis came to power in 1933 he was declared a degenerate artist and his war memorials at Güstrow, Kiel, and Magdeburg were dismantled. In 1937 he wrote: ‘A pimp or a murderer is better off. He at least gets a legal hearing and can defend himself. But we are simply repudiated, and whenever possible purged.’ He died the following year. The memorial in Güstrow Cathedral was restored after the Second World War and a copy made for the Antoniterkirche in Cologne; it takes the form of a hovering bronze angel and is considered by many to be Barlach's most deeply spiritual work. His studio in Güstrow is now a museum of his work and there are also museums dedicated to him in Hamburg and Ratzeburg.

Barlach, Ernst (1870–1938). German sculptor, printmaker, and writer, a major figure of Expressionism. Until he reached his thirties Barlach was as much a ceramicist as a sculptor, working in a fairly derivative Art Nouveau style, but a turning point in his career came in 1906, when he visited Russia. The vast empty landscape and the sturdy Russian peasants made a great impact on him; these hardworking people, with their simple faith, symbolized for him ‘the human condition in its nakedness between Heaven and Earth’ and helped inspire him to create a massively powerful figure style. He was influenced also by medieval German carving, with which he recognized both a spiritual and a technical affinity — he preferred to carve in heavy, close-grained woods, but even when his figures were modelled in clay and cast in bronze they retain the broad planes and sharp edges typical of woodcarving. In 1910 Barlach settled at Güstrow, a small town near Rostock, where he spent the rest of his life. By this time he had created his mature style, which changed little thereafter. His most characteristic works are massive, block-like, heavily robed single figures or pairs of figures symbolizing some aspect of the human condition (The Solitary One, 1911 Kunsthalle, Hamburg). He also produced several monuments commemorating the First World War and he was a prolific maker of lithographs and woodcuts, particularly of illustrations to his own plays, of which he published seven; they are sombre works, typically showing the individual wrestling with the ties of the material world in search of God, but they sometimes have a grotesque humour not seen in his sculpture.

After the First World War Barlach was much honoured, but when the Nazis came to power in 1933 he was declared a degenerate artist and his war memorials at Güstrow, Kiel, and Magdeburg were dismantled. The memorial in Güstrow Cathedral was restored after the Second World War and a copy made for the Antoniterkirche in Cologne; it takes the form of a hovering bronze angel and is considered by many to be Barlach's most deeply spiritual work. His studio in Güstrow is now a museum of his work and there also museums dedicated to him in Hamburg and Ratzeburg.

Ernst Barlach , 1870–1938, German expressionist sculptor, graphic artist, and writer. After studying at the Dresden Art Academy he lived in Paris (1895–96) and in Berlin, Hamburg, and other German cities. A trip to Russia in 1906 gave new impetus to his art. Barlach pioneered in the introduction of expressionism into Germany. Through the power of his simple, angular, and compact forms, he communicated intense emotion and compassion. From clay modeling he turned to wood carving and woodcutting. Many of his works were destroyed by the Nazis; however, some remain in Lüneberg and the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Cambridge, Mass. Barlach illustrated some of his poems and plays.

Bibliography: See his Three Plays (tr. 1964); study by Carl D. Carls (1969).

Barlach, Ernst (1870–1938) German sculptor, graphic artist, writer and dramatist. He was a pioneer of the German expressionism movement. His distinctive style was influenced by medieval German woodcarving and art nouveau. Barlach's sculptures, such as the bronze angel in Güstrow Cathedral, northern Germany, have a raw, emotional quality and vigour.