Ludwig Meidner

In fact, Meidner was particularly attuned to the upheavals and convulsions of his time. With his "Krieg" (War) series, created 1914, he became one of the first German painters to criticize the war in artistic terms.

As the signature in the lower left corner reveals, this print from Meidner’s "Krieg" series, titled "The Bomb", was created in October 1914. At the time, the overwhelming majority of Germans – including most intellectuals and artists – were infected by a euphoric enthusiasm for the war. In this cycle, Meidner showed its horrors.

For Ludwig Meidner, the
First World War triggered an identity crisis because the disaster of war
suggested all his expressionist utopias had failed. The next few years of Meidner’s life were
marked by an intense study of religion.

In 1916, Meidner began working as an interpreter in a POW camp as part of his military service. During this time, his literary work played an increasingly important role in his artistic activities. He wrote the hymn-like prose poems that were later published in the collections “Im Nacken das Sternemeer” (The Sea of Stars at My Back) and “Septemberschrei” (September Cry).
In his engagement with religion, Meidner vacillated between moments of great ecstasy and others in which he raged and railed against God for the horrors of war.

In marked contrast to his earlier portraits, many of which have a theatrical effect, Meidner now began portraying his subjects in a more realistic fashion. These portraits were also idealized, of course, and many incorporated his own features. Devout Jews came to replace the costumed, dramatically portrayed prophets, zealots and skeptics of his earlier works.

For example, the cloak that Meidner had previously used as a historicizing element was now replaced by the tallit, or Jewish prayer shawl. In this drawing, we can see that the garment is indeed a tallit by the ornamented trim (atarah) on the neckband.

This still life is an exception among Meidner’s religious images, which consist primarily of drawings and mostly portray human figures. However, it is illuminating insofar as it underscores the main theme of Meidner’s religious art. The tallit (prayer shawl), the tefillin (phylacteries on the right and in the open velvet pouch) and the prayer book (a Siddur for the weekdays or a Machzor for the high holy days) illustrate the central importance of prayer for devout Jews.

The Hebrew inscription in the upper right corner reproduces the opening of Psalm 104: "Praise the Lord, my soul. Lord my God, you are very great." The initial verses of this psalm (known as "Barchi Nafshi" in Hebrew) are used in the Sabbath liturgy in winter and are also recited at the beginning of Torah readings in the yearly cycle.
Beneath the inscription is the Hebrew monogram “Mem” for Meidner, painted in red, which the artist used from the late 1920s on when signing many of his religious works. The year 5697 in the Jewish calendar corresponds to 1936/37 in the Gregorian calendar.

Based on his understanding of religious experience as a personal encounter with the Creator, Meidner mainly used individual figures – as opposed to crowded genre scenes – to portray the Jewish holidays.

In this work the artist presents a devout Jew with the "arba minim" ("four species" in Hebrew) – the etrog (a citrus fruit) and the branches of palm, myrtle and willow trees. These branches are used to make the traditional bouquet for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles.

This drawing focuses on a special prayer during the ceremony of Havdalah ("separation" in Hebrew). Havdalah begins at nightfall on Saturday and marks the end of the Sabbath and the beginning of the new week. The drawing shows the ritual objects required for the various blessings.

On the right we see a so-called kiddush cup, which is required for the blessing recited over wine before meals on both the Sabbath and Jewish holidays ("kiddush" means "sanctification" in Hebrew). Wine is poured into the cup until it overflows as a symbol of abundance. The overflowing wine runs down into the Havdalah saucer.

Next, a blessing is recited over spices and everyone smells the fragrant spices stored in a besamim box (besamim means "spices" in Hebrew). These boxes are usually richly decorated and in the shape of a tower.

The Havdalah candle, which is braided from several strands of wax, is lit at the start of the ceremony and extinguished with wine at the end. The candle is needed for the blessing of light, which is the final blessing in the Havdalah ceremony.

While the blessing of light is recited, everyone looks at their hands and the light reflected in their fingernails.
For pious Jews, the Sabbath is the high point of the week. Observing the day of rest is one of the Ten Commandments. The specialness of this day is emphasized by festive rituals that mark both the beginning and the end of the Sabbath.

Along with portraits of
devout Jews, Meidner’s religious work includes numerous depictions of biblical
themes. However, as a rule, he did not base his work on the conventional
depictions or scenes commonly found in art history and the Jewish tradition,
such as ornamentation on ceremonial objects or book illustrations.

This watercolored drawing is a clear example of Meidner’s distinctive approach to rendering biblical themes. On the back of the drawing the artist has written the title "Dawid Hamelech (King David)." "Hamelech" is Hebrew for "the king".
Without the help of the title it would be all but impossible to identify the depicted scene. The symbolic attributes usually associated with David in artistic images – a crown and a harp – are absent here.

The first clue pointing to the actual passage in the Bible Meidner is referring to here is the fact that the figure is portrayed with his hands raised in the so-called orans position, a gesture made during prayer. This suggests that the figure is the praying King David.
The second clue is provided by a detail in the background, where we can see a fire from which smoke is rising.

This fire is a reference to a ritual sacrifice, which in biblical times took the form of a burnt offering. Taken together, these references point to a verse from Psalm 141:
"Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice."
In Meidner’s depiction, David is thus shown not as a hero of biblical stories but as an author of the psalms that have a particular significance for Jewish prayer and worship services.

Also illuminating is this depiction of the rescue of the prophet Elijah by an angel, in which the angel’s legs are combined into a single, tube-like extremity. Here Meidner refers to a characteristic of angels derived from a Bible verse in the Shulchan Aruch.

Here, in the instructions for the morning prayer, it says:
"One places the feet together as if they were but one foot in order to be more like the angels, of whom it is said (Ezek 1:7), their feet a straight foot, meaning their feet appear as one foot."
There are no precursors in art for this depiction of the angel with one foot, which means that Meidner adopted the motif directly from post-biblical rabbinical writings.

In December 1942, the
United Nations published an official declaration that for the first time
officially confirmed the systematic murder of European Jews. Meidner was deeply
shocked by this news and began a picture cycle devoted to the Holocaust, which
he titled "Leiden der Juden in Polen" (Suffering of the Jews in Poland) or "Massacres in Poland."

In early 1943, writing from London to friends in South America, Ludwig Meidner described the motivation for his Holocaust cycle:
"For weeks now I have been working on a cycle of watercolors titled 'Suffering of the Jews in Poland'. This work has compelled me to think constantly about the fate of my brothers."