A Selftold Life

Terrence Paris is Public Services Librarian at Mount St. Vincent
University in Halifax.

Ernst Barlach, sculptor, graphic artist, and dramatist, was born in
Wedel, near Hamburg, in 1870; he died, perhaps from starvation, in
Rostock in 1938, after much persecution by the Nazis. His work, though
influenced by late Gothic wood carving, has been assigned to the
Expressionist School.

Barlach’s concern with man’s spiritual quest is manifested in
extreme gestures of ecstasy or despair, such as flowing draperies and
exaggerated facial features. In his prime, in 1927, Barlach wrote an
autobiographical sketch, Ein Selbsterzдhltes Leben, recounting his
childhood and young adulthood up to his meeting with the expressionist
poet Theodor Dдubler in Florence in 1909. “To you it is given,”
Barlach wrote of himself, “to express without reserve, all that is
within you . . . because for everything, be it paradise, hell, or one in
the guise of the other, there is expressive form.”

Groves has translated Barlach’s autobiography in a handsome edition
illustrated with reproductions of drawings and sculptures, and intended
as the inaugural volume to a series of English translations of
Barlach’s eight plays. However, Groves does not compromise her
scholarship for the sake of the reader’s lack of knowledge.
Consequently, basic biographical information has to be gleaned from the
textual notes. Making a coherent whole from diverse references to the
far-flung wanderings of the Barlach clan, is a difficult task. Even the
sculptor’s sad fate must be surmised from references to
“restrictions” and to the designation of one sculpture as
“degenerate art.” Also, some of Barlach’s allusions require
elucidation; for example, who is the “Jean Paul” whose characters
suggest the figure of Dr. Klencke? Obviously, the reader is expected to
know.

A Selftold Life will be useful to supplement more accessible texts in
the field of twentieth-century European art.