BONNIE ROOS
Anselm Kiefer and the
Art of Allusion: Dialectics
of the Early Margarete
and Sulamith Paintings
Wenii er hicr 7\\ st-iiicm Schieckcn sieht, wio clif I.ogik sich LIU difsni Grenzcii um
sich selbsi ringclt und (.'ndlith sirli in dfii Schwiin/ bcisst—d;i briclu dii- Tit'iie Form
der Erkfiiiitniss durch, die tragi.schf Erkenvhihss. die. uni nui- frtr;i{rcii /u wcrden. als
Schutz und Heilmittel die Kunsi braucht.
When they see lo their horror how logic coils up al tliese boundiu irs ;iiid finally biles
its own Uiil-—stiddt'nlv the new lorin of insif^ht breaks ihrougli, Im^c insi^lit, which,
merely to be endured, needs an as a protection and remedy.
—Frt'drich Nietzsche. l)if(ielni>l4erTragodie [TheBirth. ofTriigedy]
IN A WORLD WHERE ATROCITIES HAPPEN on a scale that would have been
unimaginable prior lo the twentieth century, we must contend with the inadeqtiacy
of Umguage, whether visual or textual, to account for the horror of these
experiences. Wliat is the use of art, poetry, or, we might add, criticism, in light of
these events? Theodor Adorno grappled with these questions when he commented
that to write poetry after Auschwiu is barbaric. In contrast, Anseim Kiefer stiggests
the possibility that through art we can begin to be redeemed from tliese
horrors. But because Kiefer's philosophy relies on art's representation of even
the most reprehensible perspectives of history, he places some heady responsibilities
on his critics—both to decide if "good" pohtics is essential to "good" art
and to assess whether Kiefer's art reflects "good" politics, even if it is "good" art.
Though hi.sart is now rarely viewed as controversial (see Hutchinson 2), Kiefer's
notorious Besplzwigcn oi "Occupations" photographs, in which he performs the
taboo Sieg Heil gesture at major World War II battle sites and domestic spaces,
provide a useful example of what is at issue in his work (see, especially, Arasse 38-
40). These smaller works were exhibited at the 1980 Venice Biennale, together
with huger paintings and sculptures by George Bazelitz that, as Liza Saltzman
describes them, "delved into tnvths of the Nibelungen, Wagnerian scenarios,
German intellectual histoi y, and nationalistic militarism, all rendered on a scale
and with a palette that was seen to bespeak a nascent, or renascent and potent,
German national ideutit)^ replete with all its ghosts" (108). German critics were
scandaUzed and deeply concerned about how international viewers might per-
ANSKI.M KIEFER AND THE ART OF ALirSION/25
ceive these works. As John Hutchinson suggests, "[t]hcrc would have heen little
in the way of controversy liad Kit-fcr's art explicitly condemned Germany's fascist
past. Btit altliongh—and because—his iconography is refracted by irony
and fragmentation, his images have always .seemed eqtiivocal, and even, at times,
elegiac" (3).
KJefer's work is now understood as contributing to a discourse on post-World
War II (ierman nationalism and iconoclasm, and it is partly this subject matter
itself, in the wake of what scholars have termed Germany's "ctiltural amnesia"
about the Holocaust, that lends Riefer's work such edge.' But Kiefcr's work is
made precarious not only because he takes up the same Romantic painters that
the Niuis nsed for their propaganda, btit also because the epic, heroic, and Romantic
qualities he exploits in his works are key elements of narratives that have historically
perpetuated the oppression of marginalized peoples: they enable the illtision
that there are clear delineations het\veen good and evil, self and other, violent
masculinity and subservient lemiTiinity. (ierman and Jew.
Some of the Besetzungen photographs make the connection hetween Romanticism
and Nazi totalitarianism explicit through citation. One, for example, alludes
to Caspar David Fi ic-drich's Der Wanderer uber dei/i \'ehelmeer {The Wanderer
Above a Sea of Eog; see figures 1 and 2), the Romantic image par excellence (see
M. Rosenthal 14-15). Even in non-narrative works like Der Wanderer, the work's
artistry lies in its creation of a Romantic "stiblime," so that the landscape seems
to emanate from (he central figure in a manner that blends "heavenly" and
"earthly" perspectives. I.eo Koerner observes:
[\V]c arc- left uiicfriain wlieilicr we siand on solid f^rouiKl bfiiiiul ihe Miiiiiiiit, oi wlictlifc we Iloal
in space with the clouds. [. . .] Siandinjf with its feet on the ground, however, is tlic Ruckenfigur
[traveler], installed in Lht- nudsi of ihings, between the vast, insubstantial landscape and our own
aiiibiguoiLs point of view. It is he who mediates our experience of the scene, and who knits together
the landscape's disparate fiagments. Indeed il is hard to imagine whal the view fiom the SLunmil
would be without his ci-iurah/ing and concealinj^ prcsetue, how. for example, the syiiunetritai hills
radiating from jusi below his shoulders would actually meet in the valley. (Koerner 181-82)
Kiefcr's photographs similarly reproduce the controlling gaze of Nazi surveillance
through which a chaotic world is unnattnally oidered. Yet Besetzungen also undermines
such comparisons.- Whereas traditional SiegHeil images portray crowds
of people saluting in unison, Kiefer deconstructs the iconography of the image
by saluting the empty ocean or by saluting in his own bathttib, and so emphasizes
the futility of such a gesture. Moreover, in contemporaneous works like Fiir Genet
{To Genet; figme 3) thai also foregrotmd the SiegHeil, Kiefer ridictilcs the ctilt of
masculinity associated with the gesltu e by performing the Sieg Heil in a woman's
dress. Once again, however, these figures are equivocal: while Kiefer's photographs
deconstruct the performance of the Nazi salute by staging it in "drag"
and in domestic spaces, they also reify the Romantic idea of the male artist-asshaman
and Christ-figure, a claim ft)r the healing and supernatural powers of
' In this, Kiefei follows in the tradition of one of his mentors.Joseph Bueys. SeeArasse 28.
- Critical re.sponses to the provocalivc- ambivalence of Anselm kiefer's work continue to be ambivalent
themselves. For Saltzmaii, Htivssen. and t.6pe/-Pedra/a. Riefer's art remains an object of
concern, despite their intellectual iidmiralion of it. Kor (lilmour. Biro, and Arassc, the ambivalence
oiKJeJer's art is the primarv reason for its brilliance, and in some sense, its democratic tendencies.
Figure l:.'Viiselin Kiclcr, pajrc 144 Irom lii'.si'Iziingcn [Occupations], 19r>9.
From liitn-funktiiinni. Colofrne. no. 12, 1975, Book.
artistry through its masculine appropriation of feminine (pro)crcative abilities.'
By reviving this proscribed salute, and in repeatedly performing it himself, Kiefer
also reintegrates an image of domination into critical currency and contemporary
memory. This step is stirely risky, even if successful. Defending the sort of
artistic license used in his Besetzungen photographs, Kicfer explains, "I do not
' Saltzman reads Kiefer here as a "cross-dro.sser" (61); I see Kiefer as something more akin to a
shaman. See especially Hliade's SImmanism, C:iiapter 13, for rtirthcr information. This use ofshanianic
symbols once again links Kieier with his former teacher Joseph Bueys.
ANSKLM KIEFKR AND THE ART OF AI.l.USION/27
Figure 2: C^aspar David Fricdrith (1774-IK40). W'ltndrrrrHim dem Sfbelmeer
[Wanderer Above a Sea oflog], CA. 1817. Oil on canvas, 94.8 x 74.8 tni.
Kunsihalle, Hamburg. Photo: Bitdarchiv Preussischt-r Kuktirbesitz/Aj t Resource, NY.
identify with Nero or Hitler, but I have to reenact what they did just a little bit in
order to understand the madness. That is why I make these attempts to become a
fascist" (qtd. iti Saltzman fiO). Given these attempts, we can appreciate the concerns
of the German critics at the Venice Biennale who condemned Kiefer's work.
Kiefer's most recognized and Iciist controversial works lo date borrow their
titles from Holocaust survivor Paul Gelan's provocative poem "Todesfuge." The
paintings in the series, named De'in goldenes Ilaar, Margairle {Your Golden Hair,
Margarete; figure 7)' or Dein aschenes Haar, Stilamii (Your Ashen Hair, Sulamith;
' ^tomeiiTficAaSso Dein bliindes Haar, Margarete [Your Blond Hair, Margnrete).
COMPAR.\TIVF I.nFR.\TURF/2S
Figure ;i: Anselm Kieler, from l-iirC-eiiet [To Genet], 1969.
Book, 70 X 50 X 8 cm., George Baselii/. Derueburg.
figure 8), draw on a text that has inspired considerable philosophical debate
about the nature and potential of art in post-Holocaust (iermany.' Celan's poem
has also given rise to ethical and biographical debates about Jewish forgiveness
or, con\x'rsely. a Jewish inability to reconcile with the horrors of the Holocattst
and the Cierman present (see (-olin 42 and (ilenn 70). Ceian incorporates allusive
names—Margarete, a name taken from the female protagonist in Goethe's
Faust, and Sulamith, the name of the Jewish princess from the Bihlical Song of
Songs—into his poem, and yet the complexity of these motifs has remained unaccounted
for in critical analyses of Kiefer's Margarete and Sulamith paintings.
In this essay, I explore the function of the Margarete and Sulamith allusions in
Kiefer's work by fust moving toward an understanding of them in Cx-lan's poem.
To do so, I consider their origins and meanings in Celan's Biblical and Romantic
sources. Recognizing Celan's alltisiutis in "Todesfuge" as a response to two famotis
Luknsbund paintings clarifies otu" tmderstanding of his narrator's anger and bitterness.
I ftirther propose that both Celan and Kiefer are informed by a particular
Romantic effort to express the "sublime." the irresolvahle space between earthly
and heavenly ideals. These Romantic sources also accentuate the way in which
Celan's "Todesfuge" and Kiefer's Margaretp and Sulamith paintings are in dialogue
with each other. If Celan's Margarete and Sulamith should be tmderstood
as a discordant and bitter pairing, Kiefer's Margarete and Sulamith reveal the
bleak unity of these two figures, a unity which promises hope even as it confesses
to their utter devastation.
Celan's "Todesfuge" was conceptualized in 1945 while Celan was in a concentration
camp.'' Althotigh this poem is little known in the United States otitside of
^ See Sail/man's reiiiai kable first chapter, "Thou Shalt Not Make Graven Images'": Adoruo, Kiefer,
and the F.lhics of Representation" (17-47), for further discussion <if Kieicr"s response ID Adoruo.
''See (A»lin (4^) for an explanation of the confusion surrounding the actual date ot thepciem.
ANSEl.M KIEFF.R AND THE ART (JF ALLLJSION/29
stiidents of German and Holocaust Studies, il has become a national symbol in
postwar Germany. Nan Roscnthal explains, "It was anthologized in readers for
students in high schools. [. . .] It was also set to music by numerous German
composers and read on television programs. [. . .] To commemorate the fiftieth
anniversary of Kristallnacht in 1988, 'Death Fugue' was read aloud in the
Bundestag, the German parliament" (88).' In Germany, "Todesfuge" has thus
survived as a kind of litany, a postwar symbol of penitence for the Holocaust—in
Nan Rosenthal's words, a "national obsession" (88).
Todesfuge"
Schwarze Milch der Fruhe wir trinken sie abends
wir trinken sie mil tags urid morf^onsuir irinkt-n sic ii;i<ii(,s
wir trinken iind iriiikcii
wir srhaiifelri eiii (irab in den I.ui'ieit da lic^i diaii iii< In ciifr
Eiii MaiiTi woiiiit Ini Hausdcispicll mil den Sclilaiigcii dfrscliifibl
derscbrcibt w(.'iiii csdiinkclt nacb Dfiilscbland dcin goldciu's Haar Margarctc
erschrcibt esund iritt vordas Hans undesblii/fn die Sterne er pteift seine Riideii berbei
er pieilt .seineJiiden hervor lasst schaufeln ein Grab in der Erde
er beiiehlt uns spiell auf nun ziim Tanz
Schwarze Milch der Fruhe wir Irinken dicb iiacbis
wir trinken dicb mor(^ens und mittags wii' Irinken dicb abends
wirliinkcii und trinken
Ein Mann woluu ini Hausdcr spielt mil di'u St blan^en der schrciht
der schreibt wcnn cs dunkelt n;ic b Dcutscliland dein goldenes Haar MargareUr
Dein ascbenes Haar Sulainitb wirscbaiitcln ein (irab in deii iAilteii da befjt mati nicht cng
Er ruft stecbt tiefer ins Erdieicb ibr eiiien ibi andern sin^et nnd spieb
ergreift nach dt-ni Eisen im Giir t er st bwiiigts seine Augeii .sind blau
stecht tiefer die Spaten ihr eineii ibr andern spielt weiler /nin "laiu auf
Scbwar/c Milcb dor P'rfibe wir trinken dich naclus
wir (riiiken dicb niitiags nnd morgens wir trinken dich abends
wir trinken imd trinken
ein Mann wohnt im Haus dein goldeiies Haar Maigarete
dein aschenes Haar Sulamith er spielt mit den Schiangen
Er ruft spielt sfisser den Tod der Tod ist ein Meister ans Deutscbland
er ruft strcic bt diinklcr die Gcigeii daun steigl ibr als Ranch in die Lnft
dann babt ilir ein (irabin den Wolken da begt man ni<bt eiig
Scbwarze Milcb der Friibe wir trinken dicb nacbts
wir trinken dich mittagsderTodist ein Meisierau.s Deuischland
wir trinken dich abends und morgens wir trinken und trinken
der Tod ist ein Meister ausDenlschlandsein Aiige ist blau
er trif'ft dirh mit bicierner Kugel cr trilfl dii h geiiau
ein Mann vvobnt iin Hans dt'in goldeiies 1 laar Maigaicte
erbft/t seine Rtidcn auf miser scliL-nkt uns ein (irab iu der I.lift
er spielt mit den St hlangen und iraumei der Tod isi ein Mei.stei' aus Deutscbland
dein goldenes Haar Margarete
dein ascbenes Haar Siilamitb
"Deatb Fngue"
Black milk of daybreak we drink il at evening
we drink it at midday and morning we drink it al ni^bl
Celan repntedly bated that this protest poem migbt be understood as a reconciliation poem.
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE /30
we drink and we drink
we shovel a grave in the air there you won t lie loo ciainpt-ti
A man lives in ihe house he plays with his vipers he writes
hi'writes when it grows dark lo Deiilstbland your golden hair Marj^arcta
he writes it and steps out of doors and ihe slars are all sparkliiij:; he wliislles his
hoxnids to conie close
he whistles his Jews into rows has tlieiii shovel a grave in ihe ground
he cotiiiiiaiids us plaviip for (he dance
Black milk of davbreak we drink you ;ti night
we drink In ihe nioiningaiid midday we drink you at cvenitig
we drink and we drink
A man lives in the house he piays witli his vipers he writes
he writes when it grows dark to Deiitschlaiid your golden hair Margaret a
Your ashen hair Shtilainith we shove! a grave in ihe air there there you won't lie too cramped
He calls ouijab this earth deeper yoti lot there you others sing up and play
he grahsfor ihe rod in his helt he swings it his eyes are so blue
jab your spades deeper you lot there you others plav on for the dancing
Blaek milk of daybreak we drink you al night
we drink you at tiiidday and morning we drink you at evening
we drink and we drink
a man lives iu the house your goldenes Haar Margareta
yoiiraschenes Haar Shtilamilh he plays with his vipers
He calls out play death more sweetly this Death is a master from Deutschland
he shouts serape your strings darker you'll rise then as smoke to the sky
you will have a grave then in the clouds there you won't lie loo rramped
Black milkof daybreak we drink you at nighi
we drink you at midday Death is a master aus Deutschland
Wf drink you al evening and morning we drink and we drink
thi.s Death is ein Meister atis Deutschland his eye it is hlue
hf shoots yoti with shot made of lead shools voti level and [i ue
a mail lives in the house yotu' goldenes Haar Margarete
he looses his hounds on us grants us a grave in the air
he plays with his vipers and daydreams der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland
dein goldenes Haar Margareta
dein ashenes HaarShulamith (Trans. Felstiner Sl-.^2)
CelaiVs poem documents actual death camp practices in which orchestras comprised
of Jewish prisoners were forced to play music while others dug graves that
anticipated the immanent execution of prisoners, and sometimes ofthe orchestra
players themselves. The title's ironic fusion of music and murder (Colin 45,
Felstiner 33) demonstrates the real-world results ofthe Romantic attempt (as it
was understood and appropriated by the Nazis) to achieve "heavenlv" order on
earth. This dissonance is evidenced in Celan's opening words, "Schwarz milch"
("black milk"), a toxification of nature and mother (Felstiner 33); it is echoed in
tbe poem's almost song-like refrain tbat pairs tlie antipodal cbaracters of Margarete
and Sulamitb, "dieti goldenes Haar, Margarete/dein aschenes Haar, Sulamitb."
The repetition of tbese pbrases evokes tbe recurrence of tbe horrifying events of
tbe poem: tbe German soldier "spielt mit den Scblangen" ("plays witb vipers")
and waves "dem Eisen" ("tbe rod") from "itn Curt" ("bis belt") in a display of
masculine power that bints at a forbidden, uimattiral knowledge. He commands
tbe orchestra prisoners, "Er ruft spielt susser den Tod der Tod ist ein Meister aus
Deutschland/er ruft streicln dunkler die Geigen dann steigt ihr als Raitcb in die
ANSKl.M RlKKt.R AM) THE ART OF.U.LUSION/31
Liit't" ("play death more sweetly this Death is a master from Dciitschkind/he
shouts scrape your strings darkfi you'll rise ihcn as smoke to the sky"). Althotigh
the prisoners are shot—'"er trifft dich mit blcicrncr Kugel er trifit dich genau"
("he shoots you with shot made of lead shoots you level and trtie")—the smoke,
together with Siilamith's ashen haii, suggests as well the incineration of the prisoners,
the "Grab in den Luften" ("grave in the air"). In the evenings, the soldier
writes to "Deutschland deiii goldenes Haar Margarete" ("Deutschland yotir golden
hair/Margarcte")."
The function of these characters within ('.elan's poem has heen well established
among critics. In his reference to Goethe's Faust, Gehm stimmons Germany
through its most celebrated Romantic writer. Sulamith, less discussed, is ajewish
Biblical reference. As Kiefer critics have noted, the women thus represent the two
hahes of Gertnan ethnicity. [<>hn (iilmour describes Sulamith as the counterpart
to "the German heroine Margarete" (93); Matthew Biro writes, •"Margarete" stands
for the idealized German woman—the 'golden haired,' ahsent partner to whom
the man writes" (183); Mark Rosenthal adds, "By contrast, Sluilaniiie is thejewish
woman, whose hair is black owing to her race, but ashen from burning" (96).
However, Kiefer critics seem to overlook some of the aspects of Goethe's/''aw.^/
that make it so important to Gelan's poem, and therehy fail to notice Faust'^
possible relevance to Kieier's work as well. Goethe's Fausl might be descrihed as
narrating the tensions between earthly and heavenly ideals in much the same
way that Romantic landscape painters melded "earthly" and "hea\enly" visual
perspectives. Goethe's protagonists Faust and Margarete embody this quest for
the "sublime." Seduced by the Devil to exchange his soul for imnatnral wisdom,
Faust commits the most heinous of crimes and loses his love Margarete to the
machinations of his own ambitions. However, whereas in earlier versions of the
traditional story Faust was condemned lo eternal damnation for his actions,
Goethe's Faust is redeemed despite his destructive and selfish ambitions—or perhaps
even because of them. Thtis, Goethe's prologue compares the testing of
Faust to God's testing of |ob at the provocation of the Devil. This device further
mitigates Faust's responsibility for his actions: it is not Faust's weakness, or even
the Devil's scheming, that causes the tragedy, but God, who allows the test to take
place at the expense of Margarete's corruption and death. Indeed, in some fashion,
the Devil is God's invention, God's design to bring man into his fold, to
make man active in his own salvation: "'Des Menschen Tiitigkeit kann allzAileicht
erschlaffeii,/Er liebt sich bald die tmbedingte Riih;/Ditnn gib' ich gern ihm
den Gesellen zu,/Der reizt nnd wirkt tmd mufi als Teufel schaffen.—'" {Prolog
340-43; "'Man all too easilv grows lax and mclIow./He soon elects repose at any
price;/And so I like to pair him with a fellow/To play the Deuce, to stir, and to
entice'" [trans. Arndt]). For Faust, the heavenly is revealed through its contrast
with the earthly and sinful.
Fatist's lover Margarete is similarly situated between the real world of sinners
and the ideal world of saints. Although she comes to embody the path to eventual
salvation, like Faust she must access it through her own corrtiption. In Faust I.
" Nciihcrtlot'thf imi the Bible mentions ihc hair color nrciih«'i<h;ir;itieL. Fui' finLlifr discussion
see Sallzman 28, KclstiiitT 36.
COMPARATiVF,LITER.\TURE/32
Margarete is the archetypal woman, a na'i\e village peasant who falls victim to the
ambitions of her alchemical magician-lover. Beheving Faust's promises, Margarete
inadvertently kills her mother with a sleeping potion, is responsible for her brother's
death while defending her (now dubious) honor, and is left pregnant and
abandoned by Faust. As final testimony of her corruption, she drowns her own
child. Mark Rosenthal, one of the only Kiefer critics to note the important detail
of this murder, eclioes many Goethe critics when lie rationalizes that "love leads
Margarete to be deceitftil to her mother and to kill her own baby" (99). But
Margarete does not kill her child for love; she kills her child otu of desperation
at being abandoned. A woman who elsewhere appears to be an ideal of maternity
(see 1..S121-48, for example) commits infanticide and so becomes indisptitably
sinful and a compelling character precisely becatise of this sinfulness (see
Mason 216, 1^40). Margarete's courage lies in the fact that, after she realizes her
own guilt, she refuses to escape ptniishnient even when Faust comes to rescue
her from execution. She is thus saved from damnation because she places her
trtist in God'sjtidgment instead of nian's. Like Faust, she is redeemed and granted
heavenly salvation both because of her return to piety and because the magnitude
of her earthly sins allows her to glimpse the greatness of (iod's forgiveness.
Goethe's translation of Margarete into the reahii of the heavenly is considerably
magnified in the allegorical faust //: Margarete is now a heavenly spirit—
"die eine biisserin, sonstGretchen [Margarete] genannt" (a "penitent, else called
Gretchen [Margarete]")—who is ahle to intervene on Faust's behalf at the moment
of his death:
Alles V'erganglichc
Ist nin fill tlieithnis;
Das Un7nlangliche,
Hierwird's Krcignis;
Das Unbeschrciblithe,
Hierist'sgelan;
Das Ewig-Wcibliche
Ziehtunshinan. (Pan 11.5.7.12104-12111)
All that is changeable
Isbni refraciion;
The unaciainabk'
Here bcconifsatUon;
Human disctriuiK'iit
Here is passed by;
Woman Eternal
Draws us on high, (trans. Aiiidt)
As a manifestation of the "Ewig-Weibliche" or "Woman Eternal," Margarete makes
it possible for P'aust to be saved, despite his sins, rather than condemned to eternal
damnation (see Schweitzer 135). As Mark Rosenthal observes, "Goethe depicts
women as the sacred preservers of moral values, wlio are undone and
destroyed by the male 'us,' but still can be redeemed and subsequently save 'us'"
(99). Indeed, Margarete's self-sacrifice in Faust I is esteemed so greatly in Goethe's
Faust If that her redemption enables her to play a role that ri\als that of the
Virgin Mary.''
"As Dye writes, "Margarele is a Madonna, indeed a mater dotorosa," adding, "but this does not
ANSELM KIEFER AND IHE ARI OF AELU.SIO\/3;i
In their reading of O'lan's poem, Kiefer critics have missed the very aspects of
Margarete that distingtiish her from the Madonna, even if Goethe collapses the
two. For Gelan, Margarete—woman, Germany—is not an innocent, idealized heroine,
btU rather a tainted one. While she is a compelling character who comes to
repent her actions (as Germany repents its actions), to cliaracterize C'-elan's
Margarete as the "German heroine" or "the idealized German woman" is misleading.
Given that Goethe's Margarete kills her child ("Germany's" future), we
should wonder to what degree Margarete shares responsil^ility for the sadism
that is enacted ou the body of Sulamith when we consider her role in C^elan's
poem. Is it Margarete's implicit or spoken bidding, or Germany's, or his own, to
which the soldier responds with such anger against Stilamith? Aud to what degree
are these commands distinguishable? Like Goethe's Margarete, Celan's
Margarete is complicit in murder, atid, as such, .she becomes in bis poem the
appropriate symbolic bearer of "Schwar/e Milch" to Germany's children.'" Wiiereas
Goethe implied that no one is unsalvageable (see Mason 232), Celan gives no
indication that Margarete asks for forgiveness and no hint of redemption. Kven
so, Margarete is not the real villain of the poem. Her responsibility for the death
camp horrors in Celan's poem—however serious—pales in comparison to that
of her brutal German soidier-lover.
The tradition of Sulamith—a uanie that means woman of Shulam or Jewish
woman (see Felstiuer 3H)—is important both for its emphasis on the overcoming
of differences through love and her status as an earthly ideal. The Old Testiiment
Song of Songs portrays an erotic love-story between its narrator, presitmed to be
Solomon, and the beautiful "Shulamite," a woman among hisJerusalem harem.
She comes from a poor family, btit nonetheless becotnes the favorite wife of her
royal husband. After an unexplained lovers' rift, Stilamith reconciles with her
husband in a garden of earthly delight. The story is t\pically viewed as a call to
the purit)- and wonder of monogamous, sensual life, with the marriage of the two
lovers representing—depending on the interpreter—differences in race, class,
and/or religion overcome by means ofa passionate, loving marriage. Within the
story, Sulamith's ability quickly to forgive is a marker of her embodiment as a
"bridge," the loving and mercif til means hy which differences are overcome.
Because she serves in this symbolic capacity as an "earthly" ideal, Sulamith,
like Margarete, became important to the Romantic investigation of the sublime,
particularly among the Lukaslmnd (or Nazarene) painters (see also, Felstiner 38,
298 n4;l). In 1811, Just prior to his death from consumption, Franz Pforr finished
his last painting, Shulamit und Maria {Sulamith and Maria; figtn e 4), allegorizing
his friendship with fellow artistJohann Friedrich Overbeck." In the tradition
explain why she, the other pcnitciils, aiut tbe Vii>fin Maiy are pccniiarly suited to lead us onward.
Nor does the point ihai [both lignres have] lost a cbild tnake an infanticide into tbe sister of ibe
Virgin Mary" (107). Of course. Fausi's nnusnal perseverance in bis quest, bowever evil, is also crucial
lo bis salvation. As tbe angels cotitirin. '•'Wer inimer strebend sich bemCibt,/t")en konncn wir
eriosen'" (Part II. 5.1 HlSli-I^V; "'wlioever strives in <easeless toil./Him we may grant redemption'"
[irans. Arndtl).
'" Felstiner disagrees witb tliis reading (3!i). Colin also lemarks upon it (43).
" My bearlfelt tlianks to William Sberwin Simmons of tbe Utiiversity ol Oregon for pointirit{ otit
these drawings and paintings to tnc. and lor bi.s help with early drafts uf this essay. In comparison
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE/34
K i t i t i r e 4 : F i a i i / Pforr, Sulamith niiil Mtiria [Sutnnulh inut Man<i\. lHI 1.
Oil on wood 34.5 x Vl cin. Mtisenm (leorg Schiiler. Scbweinfiirt.
of the l.ukasbttnd, the dipt\cli is based on a 10-chapter fairytale Pforr invented
about two sisters, Stilamith and Maria, marrying two artists.''^ The darker haired
Sulamith siis in the midst ofa sunny garden filled with irises while feeding her
child a pomegranate, a fruit often used to represent longevity and immortality.
In the diptych, she is a maternal, even Mary-like figure, represented in the Italian
artistic tradition of Raphael, which was prefeired by Overbeck; thus, the setting
witb pahilers like Caspar David Friedrich, the Nazarenes have garnered little recent attention, btit
ihey were in their time an important school of tierman Romaiiticistn. Moreover, tbe dialectic between
their work and (loetbe's is echoed in the art of Celan and Kiefer. See particiilarlv Vaiighan
104-65,172-7"..
'- In Pforr's fairytale, tbe fatber. Joseph, iiatnes bis daufiliters wben be opens the Bible U) pray at
tbeir births. Alibongb he chooses natnes that rellect a jewisb and Christian ideal for bis fairytale
andstibse«|tieiit paintings, tbere is notbitig in tbe storv or the paintings to indicate ibat Plorr associates
"Sulamith" wiili Jewish etbnicitv, except iti tbe setise tbat. as an Old Testament figure, she serves
as a precursor t() the New Testatnent Mary. Altbougb otie of Klopstock's Odes may also have been a
sotirce for Pfbrr's and Overbeck's interest in tbe ilgtire of Sniamitb. I bave been unable to confirm
tbis. /\s part of the performative process, Plorr and Overbeck gave tbe artists ()f his fairytale the
same names hy whieb tbey called eadi tUber wiibin ibeir giotip. iluis loritlrmiiig the biographical
aspect of these wen ks.
ANSFXM KIEFER AND THE ART OF ALLUSION/35
emphasizes the pastoral Italkui city in the hackgioiiiKi.'' Behind lier, a figure
resembling Oveibeck serenely enters the garden, his hands clasped in a manner
almost prayerful. However, in contrast to the Virginal Mary, who usually sits alone
in a closed garden. Pforr's Sulamith, like her namesake, fnids physical pleasure
in her "garden": Pforr pairs her with Overbeck, auspiciously aligning his friend
with the long-lasting, monogamous, but senstial marriage depicted in the Song
of Songs. Thus, Pforr"s Sulamith represents Southern pa.storal purity, Italian Renaissance
artistry, and the call to worldly happiness and satisfaction.
On the other half of the dipt\'ch, Maria—whose name evokes the virginal Christian
mother—sits in a dark inteiior, reading as she plaits her hlond hair. Maria's
knitting in the basket beside her testifies to her propriety and industry. Ahove
her in the rafters, swallows, representing eternal returns and rehirth, sit beside a
golden cross, and connect Maria and Northern artistry, like that of Durer, to a
Christian ideal of resurrection. Pforr's Maria thus possesses the more "heavenly"
aspects of the Madonna. While the Overbeck figure's entry into Stilamith's garden
bespeaks Pforr's prophesy of love and life for his friend. Pforr's own worldly
future is more fleeting. For, according to William Vaughan, Pforr's access to his
own imaginary, chaste mistress comes only through the mediation ofa small gray
cat, which bears his visage. That the artist is nowhere visible as a man in the
diptych, Vaughan suggests, foreshadows of his own early death and anticipates
(.hristian resurrection. The work thus serves as an intensely personal farewell,
one "painted as a sign of friendship 'only for Overbeck'" (Frank 16).'^
Overbeck responded to Pforr's image with an image of his own that also originally
featured Sulamith and Maria, as we know from his 1811-12 drawing, Sulamith
and Maria {Sulamith and Maria; figure 5). Borrowing heavily from Pforr, Overbeck's
darker Italianate Sulamith and lighter Germanic Maria still wear elaborate
dresses that reflect Pforr s meticulous costumes. Overbeck's Maria also glances
fervently at her friend, though she becomes more active in this desire, finally
clasping the more timid Sulamith's hand and leaning closer to her. F.ven in this
early sketch, Overbeck dispenses with the complications of the women's marriages
to two men and transfers his attention to the intimacy between the twt)
women themselves.
All of these modifications remain in the completed painting that was to hecome
Overbeck's most famous work. But the finished painting, incomplete until
1828, was retitled Ilalia und Getmania {Italy and Germany, figure 6)—a renaming
that transforms the two women and "rival muses" into icons of national artistry
{see Heise68). In keeping with Pforr's precedent, the background behind Italia
suggests rural and pastoral simplicity, complete with a small chtirch. whereas the
landscape behind Ciermania is urban and gotliic, with an enormous cathedral
spire and complex city. If the Old Testament Sulamith gives way to the New Testament
Maria in Pforr's work, the genius of Italian Renaissance artistry paves the
'' Judith Ryan first callfd tny attention to the connections between Pforr's Old Test;imenl Stilamith
and the New Testament Virfiiii Mary.
'' Although 1 have SL-CTI nothing to suggest thai the leliition.ship between Pforr and Overbeck w;is
anylhirig othei th;ui platonic, the two women who serve as ".stand ins" for their relationship, cspccialh
hi Overbeck's painting, seem to express desire for each other.
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE/:^r.
F i g u r e 5 : K r i e d i i c l i O v e r b e c k , S u l i i m i l h n i i i l M i m n [ S u l a m i l h a n d M a r i a \ , I K l I-l
Blac k c halk and charcoal. 91.7 x 102.2 cm.
Miiseiiin f fir Ktmst tmd Kulturgeschichte der Hansesiadt Lfibeck.
way for German Romanticism in Overheck's. Stilamith—even as she comes to
emhody Italia—remains linked with a kind of symbolic and historic bridge, a
space by which one can cross culttiral, national, and even gender barriers.''For
the Lukasbund, the pairing of the merciful Stilamith and the merciful Maria is
nothing short of perfect kinship, a unification of earthly and heavenly ideals.
But significantly, whereas Goethe substittttes an earthly figure (Margarete) for a
heavenly ideal (Maria) in a biblically revisionist manner, the Lvha.shund remains
committed to the ideal ofa heavenly Maria, with Sulamith as an earthly analogue.
They thereby use theirart to glorify'a traditional Christianity in which one
works to avoid sin rather tliaii embracing sin as human and natural.
Celan's use ofthe names Sulamith and Margarete suggests that he may have
been aware ofthe Romantic dialectic at work between Goethe and the I.ukasl/und.^''
As Pforr and Overbeck did before him, Celan couples Sulamith with a distinc'"'The
Biblical sioiy of Siilainiih ahcady stiggests gender diiTereiices overcome throtigh a loving
(heterosexual) marriage, btit the lact that boih Pfbrr and Overbeck tise two women's friendship to
represent their own love fur each other is suggesiivi- ol a kind offender pei fiii [iiaiuc at work
among Na/arene paintings and in Kiefer's work.
"'WTien Kuri Rraniigaii "asks il 'To<les(iige' isn'i underway to human tniderstanding [VFrslandigiingyf
, . , Won't [Sulamite and Margarete] once agaiii exiend their haiid.s to each other?" (cited in
Glenn 7(1; brackets and elipses are filcnn's), the image ofa Sulamith and Margarete "once again
extend [ing] their hands to each ulher" is evocative of Overbeck's Sulnmilh and Maria.
ANSKI.M KIKFFR AND THK ART OF A L L L ; S K ) N / 3 7
Figiuf 6: Fiiediicli O\frl)fck, Itnliii undGermanin [Italy andCnmany]. 1828.
Oil on canvas, 94 X 104.3 cm.
Bayerischc Staalsgemiildesammlungen, Neue Pinakotlick. Miuiicli,
tively Germanic figure—one who, like Sulamith, embodies an earthly ideal. But
for Celan this insistence on earthly ideals and their real-world otitcome.s serves
to dispel Romantic aspirations, (-elan's poem thereby revises the Luknshund painting,
insisting on Goethe's implied exchange ot'Margatete for the Virgin Mary. In
stark contrast to the erotic lover of Solomon, and in contrast as well to the loving
wife and mother in Pforr's painting, Celan's Sulamith is a Holocaust victim whose
only freedom is "ein Grab in den Liiften." Furthermore, she is paired not with a
Maria-like figtire of heavenly mercy, hut with a repentant Christian murderess.
In exchanging Overbeck's Maria for Goethe's Margarete, Celan insists on a jarringjuxtaposition
of figures whose opposition is akin to that of other pairs in tlie
poem: "death" and "fugue," "black" and "milk," "poetry" and "Auschwitz." In a
bitter reversal of their traditional roles, Ceian's Margarete is earthbound and
incapable of salvation; his Sulamith is sky-boimd, but not heavenly. In this sense,
Celan's use of these names enhances the angry and sardonic voice of his narrator,
who is unable to forgive a sinner whom Germans, and KJefer critics as well,
often see as a saint.
And yet, despite his evident sorrow and fury, Celan does not altogether reject
the bond between the women, or the Romantic heritage that once implicitly placed
these figtnes side by side. Although the Margarete and Sulamith pairing in "Todesfuge"
is ironic, "the two women are inseparable" (M. Rosenthal 96), particularly
COMPARATIVE LITER.\TLRE/38
if we lake into accoiinl tlie actions ol the (icrman soldier. He writes in the evenings
to his golden-haired lover Margarctc in (iennany. while he brutalizes Suianiith,
whose hair, once dark, is now ashen. Perhaps injuxtaposing the two women Celan
attetnpts to address the utterly inexplicable contradiction between the tenderness
expressed by the German soldier, the Meisler, when writing to his beloved, and
the sadistic cruelty he enacts upon Sulamith in his camp. How is it that otherwise
good people can have been complicit in and committed stich atrocities (see also
Langer 12)? C.elan offers in "Todesftige" at least one possible answer: that the
same Romantic dichotomies that allow for the fetishization and objecdfication
of Margarete in some measure sanction the dehuinani/ation ofthe prisoners the
soldier guards. Stilamith's destruction becomes a more destrtictive manifestation
of the soldier's relationship with Margarete. In referencing not only Goethe but
also the Lukasbund. Celan further hints at the eventual death of Margarete-asGermania,
German art, as an epilogue to the death of Sulamith. He thus maintains
the symbolic analogue, and reminds tis, even as his poetry denies it, that art
after Auschwitz is impossible.
Thtis, in the tradition of Klaus Theweleit, "Iodesfuge" blatnes German masctilinity
for the atrocities committed during the Holocaust. In answer to Goethe's
Romantic "Woman Eternal," who offers the possibility' of salvation. Celan's poem
suggests that Germany's cult of the masculine has utterly destroyed its feminine
half. As such, Celan's Margarete may be, as is Faust's Margarete, a victim, and, if
so, Celan creates the possibility of an ideological connection bet^veen the women
even as his poem elsewhere insists on that connection's utter impossibility. Even
through her death the ashen Sulamith continties tinhappily to bind German and
Jew in a terrible history that neither can relinquish. It is perhaps becatise of this
inseparability, despite Celan's adamant claims to the contrary, that his poem has
been read as conciliatory since its ptiblication.
I want to suggest that it is precisely this dialectical reading of Celan's 'Todesfuge"
to which Anselm Kiefer is so highly attuned, and to which his mesmerizing paintings
of Mnr^arele and Siilamilh respond, while also transforming Celan's efforts
in potentially troubling ways. In the variant of Drin goldenes Haar, Margarefe included
here (figure 7),'' Margarete is rendered as a desiccated, furrowed field
with an arching bow of golden straw that evokes a woman's long hair. In this way
Kiefer's Margareie hearkens back to Goethe's earthy, peasant protagonist.'" Once
again, Margarete is squandered fertility—here the burnt and ravaged retnains of
German lands, wintry and scorched in the aftermath of World War II. Unlike
Celan, Kiefer clearly establishes Germany itself, Margarete herself, as one of the
" Kiefer creaioti about .Wvariantsof these works in 1981 alone,
'" With this comparison, Kiefer aiso uses Margarete to point to a certain absurdity to the notion of
(lermany as earth. How does one claim (he eaith as German gcntilo raUicr ihan Jew? To what
degree sliould wo imagine thai the "earth" is rcallv al fault for the F4olo< anst? liecatise of Kit-fer's
tendency toward ihis kind tiniversali^alion—lf)ss of Margarete is a foss ot the earth is a loss of Germany
is a loss of ari—his work is somewhat gerilter in ils condemnation of Margarete tfiaii Olan's
"Todesfuge." And of course such universalizing begs a key question: how accountafilc does Kiefer
fiold German art? Is il no more complicit than the earth or the heavens for its uses?
ANSELM KIEFER AND THE ART OF ALLUSION/39
Figure 7: Dein ^oldnin Hatir. Margnrete {Your (.oldt^i Uair, Margarete]. 19S1,
130 X 170 cm, nil and Miawon canvas. (;olk'ction Sanders, Amsterdam.
victims of the Holocaust, if also a perpetrator. In this bleak devastation, Kiefer's
Margarete becomes once more the compelling sinner led astray despite her good
intentions, a Germany repentant and justifiably punished for its passion for a
madman. Kiefer thus reinscribes Margarete as a kind of tragic Romantic heroine.
But neither is Kiefer dismissive of Margarete's guilt, which he links to the downfall
of art. WTiile there is no titular reference to Sulamith, her absence visibly
haunts Margarete in the dark shapes and shadows throughout the painting.
Kiefer's landscapes evoke both the violent history enacted upon the German
earth and the violent tradition of which German Romantic landscape painting is
a part. As Daniel Arasse points out, Keifer's furrowed fields echo with eerie precision
paintings such as Werner Peiner's German Land, with its views of farmers
plowing their fields. Tliough Arasse recognizes the "high horizons, showing nothing
but bare, spoilt or burnt earth" as a telling aspect of Kiefer's allusion both to
the German Romantic landscape tradition and his earnest reflection of the results
of its appropriation by the National Socialists (120-21), he remains troubled
by parallels between the works. In his view, Kiefer's topographies "bear a deceptively
close resemblance to some German woiks of the 1930s, so close that they
might be thought to be a direct source of inspiration" {120-21).
Indeed, as Mark Rosenthal has suggested, a troubling "ambivalence" remains
in the Margarete images (99), an ambivalence evident not only in Kiefer's artistic
engagement with various forms of Nazi propaganda, btit also in the Romantic
perspective of the landscapes, the very spaces where the earthly and heavenly
meet. As he explains, "In [Kiefer's landscape paintings]. we experience the earth
as if our faces were pushed close to the soil and, at the same time, as if we were
COMPARATU'E LITERATURE/4()
flying above the ground, but close to it" (32). This explanation echoes almost
exactly the perspective Koerner identified in Friedrich's Der Wanderer: "we are
left uncertain whether we stand on solid ground behind the summit, or whether
we float in space with the clouds." Thus, as with the appropriation of the taboo
SiegHeil gesture in the Beselzungen series, both Rosenthal (implicitly) and Arasse
(explicidy) point to Kiefer's willful revival in landscapes like Margrirete of artistic
forms proscribed since the end of World War II. In challenging this taboo, Kiefer
expresses an ambition to reclaim the greatness of German art even as he acknowledges
the impossibility of such a neo-Romandc resuscitation in post-Holocaust
Germany. Unlike Gelan's poem, Kiefer's Margarete performs an act of mourning
not only for Germany, but also for the very German art that 'Todesfuge" repelled.
Certainly, Kiefer's Sulamith paintings have been read as an act of mourning. In
contrast to the Margarete paintings, the majority of Kiefer's earlier Sulamith paintings
are more obviously figm ative, some, as in Dein aschenes Haar, Sulamit (figure
8), indisputably so.''' In these images, a naked woman sits almost enveloped by
her long black and white streaked hair. True to the origins of the word "Sulamith,"
this figure serves as metonymy for the race of Jewish peoples in Kiefer's work.
Sulamith's nudity here starkly contrasts with the lavishly dressed Sulamiths in
Pforr's and Overbeck's paintings. When paired with her ravaged appearance and
near-fetal position—a position that may link her implicidy to Margarete's infanticide—this
nudity proclaims Sulamith's vulnerability and victimization with much
of the tragic solemnity of Celan's poem. It evokes not only the humiliation of
concentration camps where naked prisoners were often exposed to the degrading
scrutiny of their overseers, but also—given the eroticism of the Biblical
Sulamith—a symbolic violation, a rape.-" In contrast to Overbeck's Sulamith,
Kiefer's Sulamith now sits on her half of the painting alone, her (Christian sister
gone, and, with her, the hope of spiritual resurrection that might have been
suggested by Maria's presence. Behind her lies a strange, turbid cityscape that
echoes the Lukaslmnd tradition but cannot be identified fully either with the
gothic spires of German Christendom or with the synagogues ofJudaism; rather,
it represents the hollowed remnants of German cities in the aftermath of W'orld
War II.
For Kiefer, Sulamith's death is also linked to an absent artistic tradition. If in
"Todesfuge" Celan implicitly foretold of Sulamith's death as an evolution of Margarete's
Romanticism, Kiefer's art serves as witness to the veracity of this prophecy
and its attendant: Sulamith's death means the death of German art. That
Kiefer alludes to Overbeck's painting suggests that the missing Germania involves
not only a lost friendship but also a lost German ardsdc tradition, an iconoclasm
resulting from the Holocaust that has decimated first Sulamith and then
'" AlihoLigb Kiefcr's 1983 Sutumith is the best known of these paintings, he creaied many lelated
versions in 1981, entitled Dein aschenes Haar. Sulamith. This paper deals with these earlier works
since they were exhihited al the same time as Kiefer's Margarete paintings. To date. Kiefer has dropped
his work on Margarete and focuses only on Sulamitti.
^^ I do not want to suggest overmuch the actual rape ofJewish prisoners. Theweleit expresses his
surprise that while Nazi soldiers took pleasure in killing women who fotight against them, rape was a
rare event. He credits Nayi repugnance for sexuality and its reliance on male homosocial camaraderie
as the reason {153-55).
ANSELM KIKFF.R AND THE ART OF /\LLLrSION/41
Figured: Drin ascfirrm Haiu. Sulamil [)i'in A'.iirii Htm; Suhimilli}. 1981.
170 X 130 cm, oil on canvas. Privale collection.
Margarete. WTiereas Overbeck e\()ke(l the two higliest yriisiic tradiiions in his
paintings, in Sulamit Kiefer speaks ofthe death of Stilamith (the Holocaust) as
Germany's only artistic inheritance. Kiefer thtis complicates Celan's mourning
for the loss of Sulamith by linking it with a lament for the loss of German art.
Through these paradoxes, Kiefer raises some important questions: What does
such a conflation ofthe death of Sulamith and the death of German art imply?
Can Kiefer legitimately mourn both? Though Kieler's Margarete and Sulamit are
mourned in two separate paintings, the absence of each in each other .s paintings
is made palpably present. Thotigh they are still linked, the sisterly twinning
of Margarete and Sulamith is no more possible in Kiefer's paintings than it was
in Celan's poem. But if Celan's invocation of Margarete paired with Sulamith is
ironic and jarring, Kiefer's invocation ofthe two women both acknowledges their
COMP.4RATIVE LrTKR/\TURE/42
inseparabilitv- and expresses sadness, rather than anger, at the devastation that
such a pairing historically has meant to each.
Indeed, the continued dialectic—both between the two paintings and between
the paintings and Celan's poem—seems once more to emulate a Romantic ideal
satirized in Celan's "Todesfuge": a pairing of opposites—blond and brunette,
good and evil, salvation and damnation—that leads to a sublime, higher "truth."
For Celan, this pairing shows the pitfalls of Romanticism. For Kiefer, it affirms
tbe ambivalences and struggles of (German art—the very characteristics that make
it potentially destructive and, because of that destructiveness, potentially redemptive.
In its ambivalence, its epic scale and tbemes, its ambitions somehow to bear
tbe cultural bnrdcn of the Holocaust, its emergent popularit)' to tbe point of
fanaticism and "cult"—Kiefer's work emphatically reclaims tbe possibility for greatness
in German art, even as the bleakness of bis works testifies to bis awareness of
the precariousness of thi.s artistic quest.
Despite the neo-Romantic teleolog)' at work in Margarete and Sulamith, however,
Kiefer has left us surprisingly bereft of heroes and villains. Celan's German
.soldier is absent, as is Goethe's Faust. Why is there no Ruckenfigur wbo migbt
"mediate" our experience? Kiefer omits the farmer, the alchemist, the Nazi. Tbe
weight of these figures is perhaps once more borne by a heroic artist who still
successfully blends earthly and beavenly perspectives in Margarete, and who still
sees the possibility of German art, despite and because of its Nazi appropriation.
But ibis figure, as Kiefer has aptly demonstrated witb bis Besetzungen and Fiir
Genet pbotograpbs, is also an empbatically ambivalent one: shaman or Nazi,
Lukasfmnd artist or Goethe, God or Mepbistopheles. Wliereas Ceian ultimately
rejects Goetbe's Romantic principles and credits tbe potency of masculinity only
in its destructive power, Kiefer's work reembraces these Romantic traditions and
insists that the masculine artist, as Nazi and/or shaman, can mourn, can rescue
Germania, can salvage and resurrect the remnants of German art. As we understand
the fears of critics at the Venice Biennale, we should also understand Kiefer's
ambitions and bopes and admire the complexity and intelligence ot his work.
But given his rich engagement witb Romantic traditions, we sbould not confuse
Kiefer's "good" art with "good" politics. As critics, it is our responsibility to take
note of Kiefer's risks as well as his successes.
West Texas A&fM University
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