Wem Zeit wie Ewigkeit und Ewigkeit wie Zeit, der ist befreit von allem Leid (If Time Was Like Eternity and Eternity Like Time, There Would Be Freedom From All Suffering)

Ernst Barlach, Wem Zeit wie Ewigkeit und Ewigkeit wie Zeit, der ist befreit von allem Leid (If Time Was Like Eternity and Eternity Like Time, There Would Be Freedom From All Suffering)

Ernst Barlach, artist

1870–1938

Wem Zeit wie Ewigkeit und Ewigkeit wie Zeit, der ist befreit von allem Leid (If Time Was Like Eternity and Eternity Like Time, There Would Be Freedom From All Suffering), 1916

Portfolio/Series title: Der Bildermann, no. 13, October 5, 1916

Where object was made: Germany

Material/technique: lithograph

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 301 x 212 mm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 11 7/8 x 8 3/8 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 347 x 277 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 13 11/16 x 10 7/8 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 19 x 14 in

Credit line: Museum purchase: Letha Churchill Walker Fund

Accession number: 2008.0017

Not on display

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Exhibition Label:
"Machine in a Void: World War I & the Graphic Arts," Mar-2010, Steve Goddard
During the War, Barlach served the minimum of three months in the infantry. An awkward, inefficient, and sickly soldier, he was discharged because of a heart ailment and returned to civilian life. Despite the short period of service, his experience with the military establishment was enough to turn Barlach into a convinced pacifist. This characteristic can be seen in Barlach’s lithographs from the time and in his later war memorials and religious sculptures produced in the 1920s and 1930s.

The title of this work is a quote from Jacob Böhme, a 17th-century German Christian mystic, and its selection reflects something of Barlach’s own religious beliefs. Although he was raised in a Protestant home, with a grandfather who was a Protestant minister, Barlach was not affiliated with any church and described his relationship with God as follows: “I am ashamed to talk of God, the word is too big for my mouth. I comprehend only that he is incomprehensible, and that is all I know of him.” He believed that man must learn through a painful process to accept the incomprehensible, realizing that the struggle, sorrow and turmoil of his life are phases that must be passed through so as to reach a higher moral and spiritual plane. Prints such as this one show Barlach’s attempt to externalize this inner process during a time of great turmoil in Europe.