Curtis_O_Baer_2010

4. Ernst Barlach German, 1870 – 1938

Two Men with a Dog, Walking in the Moonlight 1909

Pen and brush, black and brown ink with charcoal over pencil on paper 9 1 ⁄ 2 x 13 1 ⁄ 8 inches ( 24 . 1 x 33 . 5 cm) Signed and dated lower left

provenance Collection Curtis O. Baer

exhibitions Cambridge, 1958 , cat. no. 59 ; Washington, D.C. National Gallery of Art, 19th and 20th Century European Drawings , 1965 – 66 , cat. no. 4 ; Atlanta, 1985 , cat. no. 89 , p. 151 literature Fredrich Schult, Ernst Barlach Werkkatalog der Zeichnungen , Hamburg, 1971 , no. 690 , p. 95 Ernst Barlach began as an Art Nouveau sculptor and illustrator, attending both the Dresden Academy and the Academie Julien in Paris in his early years. But it was his 1906 trip to Russia which exposed him to a more Romantic vision of art. Upon his return, he was put on a fixed stipend from the art dealer Paul Cassirer in exchange for his sculptures, now newly expressive, focusing on faces and hands and reducing the other parts of the figure to a minimum. Like those in early Gothic Art, the figures expressed dramatic attitudes and powerful emotions as well as a yearning for spiritual ecstasy. He spent ten months in Florence in 1909 where our drawing was done, and afterwards settled in Mecklenberg, where he spent the rest of his life. In the years before World War I, Barlach was a patriotic and enthusiastic supporter of the war, awaiting a new artistic age to appear afterwards. This can be seen in his works, as in the statue Der Rächer ( The Avenger ), done in December 1914 . His awaited new artistic age came when he volunteered to join the war from 1915 – 16 as an infantry soldier, and returned as a pacifist and staunch opponent of war. The horror of the war influenced all of his subsequent works.