October 1913 - The Year Before The Storm

Apocalyptic Landscape by Meidner, painted a year prior

The levity of the summer months is past, tensions grow, along with the number of people with the sniffles.

Ludwig Meidner invites other great artists to his studio to showcase the art he's been working on for a while--a series of tableaux he calls 'Apocalyptic Landscapes.' These, in turn, worry his friends, who wonder if he isn't losing his mind.

But the visions Meidner depicts in his paintings will very soon turn out to be prophetic--cities on fire, people exploding, the world destroyed.

He writes: "A painful impulse inspired me to break away from all straight-lined verticals. To spread ruin, destruction and ashes across all landscapes. My brain bled amid these awful visions. All I could see was a thousand-strong roundelay of skeletons prancing around in front of me. Numerous graves and burned-out cities with plains winding through them."

Source:
1913, The year before the storm, by Florian Illies