God Belly
1921
Medium
woodcut
Dimensions
image: 25.7 x 35.8 cm (10 1/8 x 14 1/8 in.)
Classification
Portfolio
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Rosenwald Collection
Accession Number
1954.12.211
Art Historical Context
Ernst Barlach's *God Belly* (1921) is a compelling woodcut from the early Weimar Republic era, a time of social upheaval in post-World War I Germany. Bar, a leading figure in German Expressionism, was renowned for his sculptures and prints distilled raw human emotion and depth into stark, monumental forms. This provocative title hints at the artist's penchant for bold, sometimes satirical explorations of divinity, humanity, and the grotesque, challenging viewers to confront the absurdities of existence. ed as a woodcut 25.7 x 35.8 cm, the work leverages the medium's rustic power: carved into ...
About the Artist
Ernst Barlach · 1870–1938
Ernst Barlach (1870–1938) was one of the most powerful German Expressionist sculptors of the early twentieth century, an artist whose work fused medieval spirituality with modern existential anguish to produce images of haunting emotional force. Born in Wedel, Holstein, Barlach studied at the Hamburg School of Applied Arts and later at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts before traveling to Paris, wh...