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| Herzog
August Bibliothek |
Founded in 1572 by Duke Julius of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, the Herzog
August Bibliothek became soon one of the largest European libraries with the
passionate book hunter and collector Duke August (1579-1666) and boasts among
its librarians famous thinkers like Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Gotthold
Ephraim Lessing. Today it houses more than one million imprints - most of them
dated before 1850 - and represents one of the oldest and most significant
libraries of its days which has survived to the present without substantial
losses to its original collection. Therefore one cannot be surprised about the
fact that the HAB is today an international research centre for early modern
studies. Pleasantly unexpected may appear instead the interest even in current
matters and the existence of other special collections such as that of artists’
book.
The Malerbücher Sammlung collect more than 4.000 items, including works
combining text and illustrations by famous painters and sculptors, such as
Braque, Chagalle, Dalí, Enst, Matisse, Léger or Wols. These volumes are stored
in the historical building of the Augusta, the hearth of the HAB, where in a
special room temporary exhibitions take place. The present one is entitled
Kriegsdeutungen im Künstlerbuch ("Interpretation of the war in the
artists' book") and is open till 18th May 2014. The exhibition aims to
inspect the representations and interpretations of war experiences in the
artistic illustration collected in printed books or series, starting with the
Great War up to the present. Works by contemporary artists such as Barbara
Fahrner and Mimi Gross are displayed together with testimonies of the WWII by
Frans Masereel or Roland Dörfler. The focus is however on the WWI and
interesting works by Richard Seewald, Erich Erler and Max Beckmann are
displayed. Above all Otto Dix’s Der Krieg (The war) is of great impact.
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| Otto Dix, Sturmtruppe geht unter Gas vor |
Largely based on his memories as machine gunner from 1914 to 1918 on
both Eastern and Western fronts, the etchings (only a part of the 51 total) of
Der Krieg were printed by the Kupferdruckerei O. Felsing in 1924 and are
carachterised by a stark realism with an almost hallucinatory taste. The cycle
has its model in Goya's Los Desastres de la Guerra (The disasters of war -
1746-1828) and provides both a powerful and unpleasant insight into the horror
and paradox of the Great War. Regarded as one of the most important documents
on war senseless and human cruelty, Otto Dix's work is yet not a simple
condemnation: it testimonies moreover the psychological struggle of the artist
self, who first volunteered during the WWI, then kept getting elaborating the
trauma of the experienced death for years afterwards. The exhibition enables
the visitor to fill the time gap and share the artist's sight on dead,
mutilated, decomposing bodies and souls in a lifeless landscape, as if even the
nature was killed. Eventually we may be confronted with the unpleasant feeling
not being able to wake up from a nightmare - the same feeling Dix probably had
in working at this series - and become so aware of the monsters produced by the
sleep of reason.
Further information on the exhibition (only in German) here.
