Anselm Kiefer Extases Féminines, 2015
The female figure in Extases Féminines (2015) is identified in Anselm Kiefer’s distinctive handwriting as St Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582), a Spanish mystic, writer and reformer of the Carmelite order who was canonised in 1622. She experienced divine visions – the ‘feminine ecstasies’ of the work’s title – which were most famously depicted in Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s sculpture for the Cornaro Chapel in Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome, which he completed in 1652. In Kiefer’s version, the reclining figure appears in a woodland scene, surrounded by a dark aura that links her with the charcoal descending from the sky like divine inspiration. She is dwarfed by the surrounding landscape, which has its own associations within the tradition of German Romanticism. As curator Antonia Hoerschelmann describes, it is ‘a place full of secrets, the place of histories, of historical battles, a place of myths and legends. It is as uncanny as it is protective and laden with symbolism in multiple ways.’
The woodcut also has a storied history: first introduced in Japan for printing textiles in the 8th century, it is closely associated with the German Renaissance master Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) and the Expressionists’ revival of the medium in the early 20th century. The natural irregularities in the woodgrain become an integral part of Kiefer’s work, resulting in tactile effects that reflect the process of making. It is through this complex layering of visual and conceptual references that he constructs meaning, in much the same way that he physically collages multiple woodcuts to create the compositions.
