Brunhilde Sleeps
Artist: Anselm Kiefer (German, born 1945)
Publisher: [Anselm Kiefer, s.l., 1980]
Date: 1980
Dimensions:
page (irregularly cut): 23 1/4 x 17 5/16 in. (590 x 440mm)
Medium: book with photographs, acrylic emulsion, pain, graphite, and chalk; mounted on cardboard
Classification: Books
Credit Line: Gift of Molly and Walter Bareiss
Object number: 1984.602
Label Text:Anselm Kiefer is one of the most important contemporary German painters, and his art often draws on Germanic myth. This wordless compilation of thick, hand-hewn pages is a picture book inspired by Teutonic legend. The photographic images, heightened with hand-applied paint, include snow-covered forest scenes, close-up views of ice, snow-covered boughs, streams trickling past snow-covered banks, and an eerie dark interior with a water-filled tub lit by a ring of candles. On the images, the white paint often suggests falling snow flakes; the orange paint evokes flames.
The title Brunhilde Sleeps probably refers to the heroine in Wagner’s opera Die Walküre (The Valkyre), or to the legend that inspired the opera. In the story, because Brünhilde had disobeyed the god Wotan, she was made to fall into an enchanted sleep. Placed on a secluded mountain top, she was surrounded by a magic circle of fire until the hero Siegfried found her and broke the spell. Later in the story Brünhilde "sleeps eternally" after her tragic immolation on Siegfried's funeral pyre.
The title Brunhilde Sleeps probably refers to the heroine in Wagner’s opera Die Walküre (The Valkyre), or to the legend that inspired the opera. In the story, because Brünhilde had disobeyed the god Wotan, she was made to fall into an enchanted sleep. Placed on a secluded mountain top, she was surrounded by a magic circle of fire until the hero Siegfried found her and broke the spell. Later in the story Brünhilde "sleeps eternally" after her tragic immolation on Siegfried's funeral pyre.
DescriptionUnique book with photographs with added acrylic emulsion, paint, graphite, and chalk mounted to cardboard.
Not on view
In Collection(s)