1913, Ludwig Meidner, Apocalyptic Landscape -- Los Angeles County Museum of Art
From the museum label: Painted a year before the first shot would be fired in World War I, Apocalyptic Landscape is an uncanny premonition of the cataclysm the war wouid bring. Under a turbulent sky, a city street appears to fracture as the earth quakes and figures run chaotically in the foreground. Though the scene owes much to the dynamism and energetic brushwork characteristic of Italian Futurism that Meidner saw at a Berlin gallery a few months before this painting was completed, it is a decidedly Expressionist work, linking an emotional state with the scene depicted. One of approximately fifteen apocalyptic landscapes Meidner would paint between 1912 and 1916, this work is double-sided, since canvas was in short supply. On the reverse is a portrait of artist Willy Zierath.
1913, Ludwig Meidner, Apocalyptic Landscape -- Los Angeles County Museum of Art
From the museum label: Painted a year before the first shot would be fired in World War I, Apocalyptic Landscape is an uncanny premonition of the cataclysm the war wouid bring. Under a turbulent sky, a city street appears to fracture as the earth quakes and figures run chaotically in the foreground. Though the scene owes much to the dynamism and energetic brushwork characteristic of Italian Futurism that Meidner saw at a Berlin gallery a few months before this painting was completed, it is a decidedly Expressionist work, linking an emotional state with the scene depicted. One of approximately fifteen apocalyptic landscapes Meidner would paint between 1912 and 1916, this work is double-sided, since canvas was in short supply. On the reverse is a portrait of artist Willy Zierath.