Grab des unbekannten Malers

In the catalogue of the Anselm Kiefer travelling exhibition that went to Dusseldorf, Paris and Jerusalem in 1989, Jurgen Harten comments on the subject of Tomb of the Unknown Painter. "The precarious comparison of the painter with the unknown soldier occurs for the first time in this 'harmless' winter landscape. It belongs to that category of war ideology so exploited by Kiefer and is only to come to full fruition in 1982, in a series of memorials to the 'unknown painter' ... The comparison of the painter with the unknown soldier through the example of a romantic, trivial subject casts the concept of genius in an ironic light. The catastrophe unleashed through the German susceptibility to megalomania is good reason to take leave of artist mania too. Should the heroism of the artist not rather be compared to that of the anonymous hero than to the heroes themselves? Kiefer knows better than to fall for his own irony. There are so many painters, he comments soberly, that it is impossible to know anywhere near all of them; whereas nobody stays 'undiscovered long these days' ... The unknown painter now stands for the unknown in the principle of art, beyond what has become a mere affection of genius."