Ernst Barlach (Germany, 1870–1938), Christ at Gethsemane, 1919, woodcut, Cincinnati Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Walter I. Farmer, 1952.327.

Audio Description

This woodcut, titled Christ at Gethsemane, was made in 1919 by German artist Ernst Barlach, who lived from 1870 to 1938. It was given to the Cincinnati Art Museum by Mr. and Mrs. Walter I. Farmer. Its accession number is 1952.327.

The figure of Jesus Christ fills this print, which is ten inches wide. Barlach used the thick lines carved into the woodblock to create a dramatic composition that illustrates Jesus’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane as he considers his fate and prays. He is shown as a gaunt, lanky man with unkempt hair and beard wearing a robe that exposes his bare left foot and thin forearms. Christ kneels on the ground while leaning his weight on his hands, which are braced on a raised section of the ground. This figure is placed in a barren landscape, composed of diagonal lines that flow left to right to create the rolling contours of the ground. In the background the sleeping apostles huddle and lean against the trunks of dead trees.

Label Copy

This woodcut, titled Christ at Gethsemane, was made in 1919 by German artist Ernst Barlach, who lived from 1870 to 1938. It was given to the Cincinnati Art Museum by Mr. and Mrs. Walter I. Farmer. Its accession number is 1952.327.

Ernst Barlach was a renowned sculptor and printmaker in the years before World War I. After he experienced the horrors of war, Barlach’s works became more haunting in tone. In this woodcut, Barlach adapted the traditional Christian subject of Jesus agonizing over his impending betrayal and sacrifice. He emphasized Christ’s inner torment, while the twisted landscape of the garden and the bodies of the sleeping apostles evoke a war-torn battlefield.

Soon after the Nazis took power in 1933, Barlach’s work came under attack. The Gestapo (secret police) confiscated a volume of his drawings, and in 1937 his works were seized from museums. Across Germany, many of his public sculptures were destroyed. Facing a Nazi ban on his art, Barlach wrote, “No exhibitions of my works are possible. In Spain this is called garroting, asphyxiation. What can one say?”

Back to Art & Injustice Under Nazi Rule     Back to the Audio Exhibition