Birgit works with language in many different forms: as a copywriter and editor, and as an author of her own fictional texts. Her novel projects and blog posts reveal a keen attention to nuance and characters, and a keen sense of the interplay between precise language and narrative openness.

Introduction

What is your name?
Birgit Christina Susemihl

Where do you live?
In Oldenburg Münsterland in the northwest of Lower Saxony.

What kind of art/creativity do you mainly do?
I write! My first young adult fantasy novel, “Weltenfäden – Ein wolltastisches Abenteuer” (World Threads – A Wooltastic Adventure), was published in 2024. Until then, I had mostly written short stories and flash fiction, i.e., very short stories of around 1,000 words.

Did you complete formal training or are you self-taught?
I studied English and German, and later completed a distance learning course in PR/public relations. I have no training in creative writing. However, I have always written a lot professionally: press releases, advertising copy, and so on. And I read a lot.

Where can people see your work? Do you have a website or social media profiles you'd like to share? “Weltenfäden” is published by Novel Arc Verlag and is available as a hardcover and e-book wherever books are sold. You can find out more about me as an author on my website. You can also find me on Instagram, Facebook, and Threads.

You are creative. Why?

How did you get into art? Where did your creative journey begin?

I have always read a lot and even as a child I sometimes dreamed of writing a novel. At some point back then, I actually tried to write a crime novel and a kind of mystery thriller, but nothing much came of it.

Professional writing—first as a freelancer for a local newspaper, later in press and public relations at the theater—has always been a part of my life. When I started my own business as a copywriter, the desire to write my own projects grew stronger again. It started with a fairy tale for a regional competition and short stories.

What inspires you?

It varies greatly. Nature, for example, my many hikes through the Harz Mountains, where I lived for a long time. Sometimes a specific moment, something I see in front of me while walking. Or a topic I hear or read about and suddenly feel that there's a story in it.

Are there certain artists or styles that influence you?

As authors, I greatly admire Stephen King and Chuck Wendig for their wonderful storytelling and masterful narrative perspective, which brings you very close to the characters. But I read a wide variety of authors, especially science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

What's your creative process like?

I write in the traditional way on a computer, but not with a word processing program, rather with a writing program that offers other options beyond writing. I am faster on a PC and know that I can easily change or rearrange things. This helps combat the “fear of the blank page.” On the other hand, I like to take notes by hand in a notebook or on lots of little pieces of paper that I put in a box for the respective project.

Ideas come spontaneously, anytime, anywhere. That's why I always try to have a pen and notebook with me so I don't forget them. I even have a glowing pen so I can write down ideas at night without waking up my partner.

With “Weltenfäden,” once I had the basic idea, I just started writing. I'm still trying to figure out how best to plan a novel and whether that helps me at all. Or whether I'm just the type of person who only really “discovers” the story while writing it.

Is there a particular project or work that means a lot to you?

My debut (and so far only) novel naturally holds a very special place in my heart! I really enjoyed writing the story. And I am very happy that Novel Arc Verlag has given it a home, allowing Jula and Holly the young sheep, my two main characters, to come into the world!

What has been the biggest challenge you've had to overcome as an artist so far?

I signed the publishing contract when the novel was only about a third finished. We agreed on a deadline for the manuscript, and suddenly there was a certain amount of time pressure. This transition—from writing without a goal or deadline to a concrete project with a timeline and expectations from others—was quite a step.

Suddenly, the novel HAD to be finished. It was a challenge to maintain the ease of writing despite this. And, of course, it was also unusual to take writing the novel just as seriously and see it as work in the same way as the texts I wrote for my clients. Working on the novel was suddenly no longer just a hobby.

How important is connecting and interacting with other artists and creative people to you?

As a debut author, I think it's great and important to network with other authors, but also with other artists. Our publisher deliberately offers us this opportunity, and we have exchanged a lot of ideas and supported each other, especially around the publication dates. I have also made contact with other writers via social media. It is very exciting to see what others are currently working on, what problems everyone is struggling with, and then to hear about the finished books. I believe that we writers should not see each other as competition, but as enrichment. Even if we write in the same genre.

What does art mean to you? What role does it play in your life?

Literature has always been present in my life—as an escape, as entertainment, as a way to switch off, but also as a mirror of society, as utopia or dystopia. And simply as a fascinating, creative way of using language. Theater has also played an important role since my school days. First as a spectator, then I was active in student theater myself, and professionally I was also drawn to the theater. But I am also very fascinated by the visual arts, which give me new perspectives, a different view of things. And I like the opportunity they offer to look at people, things, and places from the perspective of another time.

In your opinion, what role does art play in society? What responsibilities do artists have in society?

I believe art has a difficult dual function. On the one hand, it can be beauty for its own sake, without any further purpose, entertaining and distracting. On the other hand, it can and must also take a stand, touch on sensitive issues, and be political.

For me, these two aspects do not have to be equally present in every work of art. In a work, one of the aspects may predominate or be present on its own. But both sides of art can also be present at the same time—or viewers see them alternately, as in a kind of picture puzzle—and that can even increase the enjoyment. When I like something aesthetically, but it also conveys a current message. I have often found this in theater, especially in plays, but also in film.

What topics are important to you? Is there a topic or message you want to convey in your art?

When I started writing Weltenfäden, I didn't have a specific message in mind. I just wanted to tell a kind of fairy tale (if you want to call it fantasy) set in today's world, in which a sheep and a 13-year-old girl embark on an adventure together. While writing, things that are important to me naturally found their way into the story: friendship, communicating across differences (Jula and the sheep Holly have to communicate somehow in order to act together), courage, overcoming fears and insecurities, loyalty. Being different also plays an important role: Holly, the herd animal, prefers to be on her own rather than in the hustle and bustle of the herd.

Good topics, in the sense of being easy to read and easy to incorporate into an exciting plot, that I would like to address in my stories include environmental protection, climate catastrophe, and dealing with aging. But also science fiction topics such as encounters and communication with the completely unknown.

Thank you, Birgit!

Your opportunity: Be part of my interview series!

If you are an artist or creative professional yourself, whether in painting, music, literature, or any other form of art, and would like to talk about your work and your creative process, please feel free to contact me.

I look forward to showcasing the diversity of creative expression in my interview series and reading about your perspectives and experiences.

Want to read more interviews?

At the end of September, my exhaustion culminated in depression, worse than it had been in years. I hadn't seen it coming, and it was as if it had ambushed me and hit me over the head with a club. It just jumped on me—but there was no external cause, no reason. Nothing happened—it was just there.

Since then, I've been slowly working my way back into the light—and so a review of the year, which makes me realize what was good about this year, what was beautiful, and what I can be grateful for, seems just right.

Outward View: A Politically Turbulent Year

But first, like many others, the big picture scares me. We live in turbulent times, and this turbulence affects me personally, it gets under my skin, and the general situation becomes my personal situation. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

It's almost like choosing from a menu which of the many crises is the one that impacts you the most. For me, it's this one – because it affects everyone, worldwide.

I never expected Trump to do what he did so quickly in his second term. His policies have become even more radical, and democratic norms and social peace are under pressure due to his polarizing measures. Images of people being dragged out of their cars in the open street, facing deportation, often without their relatives knowing where they have gone, are a sad, and possibly only temporary, climax of his demonstration of power.

In many countries, right-wing, nationalist-conservative, or authoritarian forces have gained real power in 2025 through elections, coalitions, or creeping institutional shifts. Not only in the US.

In Europe, too, parties and governments are using migration as a central threat narrative, invoking cultural homogeneity, delegitimizing the media or the judiciary, and seeking to politically restructure the administration.

Similar trends can be seen in Latin America, parts of Asia, and Africa: strongmen, law-and-order rhetoric, the devaluation of minorities, and the weakening of supervisory bodies. Open extremism is one thing, but the normalization of right-wing positions in the mainstream carries particular weight. Things that were unacceptable ten years ago are now “debatable.”

Authoritarianism rarely begins with an open breach of the constitution, but with the erosion of protective mechanisms, the normalization of states of emergency, and the dehumanization of certain groups. This is exactly what we are seeing today. Even in Germany.

For a long time, I believed that our experiences with fascism and our politics of remembrance would prevent us from repeating such mistakes. But that no longer seems certain.

With the election of Friedrich Merz as Chancellor, something has shifted in Germany, not only politically, but above all in tone. From the outset, it seemed that social conflicts were not to be moderated, but rather exacerbated.

Instead of focusing on structural issues of integration, economic transformation, or the climate crisis—which is also intensifying—Merz resorts to riskily charged imagery. The “changed cityscape” allegedly caused by people with a migrant background, the feeling of loss of control, the supposed threat to public order. In doing so, he plays on fears without contextualizing them.

The link between migration and violence against women is particularly problematic. By subsequently defending his statements on migration, saying that people should “ask their own daughters,” he shifts the discourse away from prevention, education, or social responsibility—toward blame and fearmongering. In doing so, he ignores the fact that violence against women in Germany in the 2020s still primarily takes place at home, not on the streets. However, concrete measures that would really help women are being watered down, delayed, or blocked by the CDU.

Merz does not represent an effective counterweight to the AfD. On the contrary, by adopting key interpretative patterns of the far right (migration as a threat, order as a moral category, fear as a political argument), he makes their positions palatable. He shifts the “overtone window” (the framework of what can be said in a socially acceptable manner) toward the AfD.

This is a mistake that conservative politicians have always been fond of making. Adopting right-wing positions does not lure voters away from the right, but rather drives them toward it, as election research shows.

Inner World: Mental Health & Boundaries

Depression can be explained psychodynamically by powerlessness, among other things. People have tried many things, made choices, written about it, fought against it with art, and now, exhausted, the possibilities for action themselves seem exhausted. Every impulse runs headlong into a wall, and all the energy that one could and would like to muster bounces back and turns inward. Thus, political powerlessness becomes personal, what psychology calls learned helplessness. I couldn't just sit back and accept that.

I wanted to make a difference—or at least make it clear that these developments would not go unchallenged. That there are people who see these shifts, name them, and are not willing to accept them silently. This is not normal. And it does matter. And that's why I took to the streets with many others.

The topic of politics, such as the intertwining of art and power, has also cropped up repeatedly in my blog articles this year.
The powerlessness remained, but it was no longer mine alone.

But underlying all my attempts not to let myself be defeated was an all-encompassing exhaustion this year. Like unstable ground that is difficult to walk on. Mentally, the hardest part is the alienation from one's own inner standards. You no longer recognize yourself in your own reactions. And that is frightening: Will it stay that way?

Artistic work depends on abilities that exhaustion attacks first: openness, resonance, tolerance of ambiguity, playing with uncertainty. Exhaustion does the opposite. It demands clarity, calm, control. Everything that is unfinished, everything that is searching feels threatening.

Exhaustion also changes your sense of time. The future loses its contours. Planning becomes exhausting, visions feel unrealistic. In addition, it is overlaid with self-observation and self-criticism. I am constantly registering what is no longer possible. This meta-level consumes additional energy.

But: exhaustion is not a final state.

I know it will pass. I just have to find a flow that neither makes me work against it nor surrender to it. Sometimes that sounds easier than it is.

A Bright Spot: Costa Brava in Spring

We couldn't go on like this.
So we drove away. To the sea. To the Costa Brava.
At the beginning of May, there weren't many tourists around yet, and some of the beaches were still deserted.

The Washing Machine Disaster

I don't remember exactly when it started. Sometime in late summer or early fall, our washing machine started making strange noises. So we called a repairman. Of course, we had to wait for an appointment, as you know how it is. Anyway, he looked at the machine, said he needed to check for replacement parts, and would get back to us with a cost estimate. More waiting, then eventually the feedback: it couldn't be repaired (no idea why he couldn't tell us that right away!).

So we picked out a new washing machine and ordered it. We were happy because the delivery time wasn't that long. The delivery arrived on time and the technicians were very nice. They took the old machine away and connected the new one—but it wasn't drawing any water. As we learned, the technicians have five minutes per delivery and connection. They tried for an hour at our place, then explained that they weren't allowed to stay any longer. We would be reimbursed for the delivery costs and should contact the dealer. Then new technicians would come.

Many phone calls followed. It wouldn't be so easy, consultations had to be made, they would get back to us. They didn't. More phone calls. In between, we were offered a voucher for 30 euros so that we could hire a technician ourselves. For 30 euros! And then we'd get a scoop of ice cream for 50 pfennigs?!
Since we weren't getting anywhere, we decided to return the machine. It was to be picked up. The repairman came—and refused to take the machine because it was still plugged in. Yes, of course! If I could have done that myself, I probably wouldn't have booked a connection service.

More phone calls. Eventually, we reached someone competent. A repairman came, disconnected the machine, and took it away. Hallelujah! But we still couldn't do laundry. And by then it was the end of November. At least we were able to take advantage of the Black Friday discount on our next attempt.
This time, the delivery time was two weeks. Oh well, can't be helped. Two more weeks of washing by hand. Hooray. The machine was delivered. Reconnected. Still no water. I was almost desperate. But this time we contacted the manufacturer and he took pity on us. He sent a certified repairman from nearby.

He came, determined that the hose had been kinked during the first delivery so that no water could flow. He connected a new hose to test it. The washing machine was standing in the middle of the room, but it was working. All good. The repairman packed up and was about to leave. Hello? It can't stay like this! He said he didn't have the right tools with him and would come back tomorrow.

Guess what. Of course, he didn't come and didn't call. When we called him, he said he was sick and would try again the next day. He didn't come the next day either. Well, he's sick, so we wait until after the weekend. We couldn't reach him on Monday. On Tuesday, now December 23, he finally got in touch. Again, he promises to come the next day.

And sure enough, he shows up, not at the agreed time, but at least he's there.
Since noon on Christmas Eve, our washing machine has been back where it belongs. Our very own Christmas miracle!

Art During the Break – and the Return

All in all, the year was a constant barrage of stress for me; my system was busy limiting damage rather than exploring possibilities. And that also had an artistic impact.

That doesn't mean I didn't paint, but no art came out of it. I don't mean that in a judgmental way. My self-esteem is easily shaken, but perfectionism has never been one of my vices. Every experience contributes to creativity, it just doesn't always find immediate expression. This applies to traveling just as much as it does to living through depression.
And so it took until well into the second half of the year before I was actually able to make art again.

Touching the Core

This series did not arise out of abundance, but rather out of an attempt to reconnect—with myself, through creative work. At that time, art was only possible in this way. Not through color, not through composition, not through external stimuli. But rather through structures, gestures, repetitions. Not a reduction out of aesthetic desire, but rather a necessity.

A framework in which other tensions become visible: presence and absence, loud and quiet, weight and lightness.
The body is not the subject, it is a tool. The core lies not in the image, but in the process.

Fractured

The works in the Fractured series oscillate between structure and dissolution, control and decay. The tension is not resolved. The areas of color, cracks, and traces refer to time, not in a narrative sense, but as a visible process of emergence and decay.

We are vulnerable during periods of inner change. In this series, vulnerability is not simply asserted, it is made legible. The cracks, layers, and breaks are not concealed.

Writing, Thinking, Persevering

Professionally, my blog was my most reliable constant in 2025. While painting requires ambiguity, resonance, and a certain inner expansiveness (which I did not have at my disposal during this phase), writing allows me to work differently—from thinking and reflecting, in a clearer structure.
The blog is a space for me to think.

Here I can sort, link, and classify things: art history, the present, politics, my own perceptions. Writing is not a retreat, but a form of self-location. Where am I right now? What do I see? What can be named?
Writing allows me to take a stand, even when I lack the energy to create.

And so, this year, articles on a variety of topics have once again been written. I wrote about my inner life, about famous artists and works of art, about tools and mechanisms in art, and even attempted to answer the question ofWhat is art?.

A total of 32 blog articles were written this year. I immersed myself in each and every topic, discovered and learned new things through each article, and every single one is important to me. But if I had to choose my three favorite blog articles, they would be these:

When the World Trembles – Art in Times of Social Crisis

Art and politics were the big topics for me this year. In this article, I won't explain what art is, but why it is needed. Not only, but especially when the world seems unstable.

How does art respond in times of political, social, or societal upheaval?
Art and art history are tools for better understanding the present.

The Invention of the Colour Blue

Did you know that blue appeared relatively late in art? I wasn't aware of that at all. In this article, I trace the history of the colour blue—from its material production and symbolic meaning to its role in art history.

Which Art Era Suits Your Travel Style?

Looking back at my previous year-end reviews, it has almost become a tradition for me to post an art quiz on my blog every year. Art can be lighthearted and playful.

Of course, these quizzes are never meant to be taken entirely seriously. And yet, I am convinced that the art we like reveals a lot about ourselves. This year, the focus was on discovering art periods through travel motifs, moods, and preferences.

What makes me happy: My texts are found, read, and shared. I am grateful for that, and it also gives me a sense of self-efficacy. The number of visitors to my website doubled again in 2025 compared to the previous year.

Unexpected Moments and Successes

Looking back, and this is precisely why the tradition of annual recaps has become so important to me, the year was mostly fuller and more positive than it felt when I was in the midst of it. Despite all the doubts, exhaustion, and breaks, this year also brought unexpected inquiries, encounters, and feedback that I hadn't anticipated and that mean a lot to me.

In terms of exhibitions, the year was also more present than I had realized. A total of seven of my works were shown in national and international exhibitions: in Cologne, Berlin, and Cuxhaven, as well as in Paris, Granada, Palma de Mallorca, and Zug in Switzerland.

There were other surprises that showed me time and again that my visibility is growing:

• An invitation from the COPELOUZOS FAMILY ART MUSEUM to participate in the 35x35 art project. The resulting work will become part of the museum's permanent collection and will be published together with me as the artist in an art book presenting contemporary art from Germany.
• Dr. Theresa Schenker from Yale University, who had already contacted me in 2024 because she had discussed some of my work in her seminars and selected it for a textbook, got in touch again. This time with a request to include my biography in her teaching. In the course of our exchange, she also included more of my work in her teaching materials.
• A young high school student asked me for an interview as part of her complex learning project (a science-like thesis) on how painting can help treat depression. The interview has since taken place and was both challenging and enriching for me.
• The MainÄppelHaus Lohrberg became aware of my blog article about apples in art history and asked if they could publish an abridged version in the Christmas edition of their magazine.

What This Year has Taught Me

When I look back on my year as a whole, it seems to me that I haven't learned any new truths, but rather deepened existing insights.
Exhaustion is not an individual failure, but a state that arises when inner demands and external impositions are permanently out of sync.

At times, it was almost impossible to create art in my studio, but thinking, writing, and organizing were still possible. My blog was not Plan B, but exactly the place where I could remain present.
Vulnerability was once again not only the subject of my art this year, but a real state of being. I had to respect that in order not to harm myself. Creativity, inspiration, and inner expansiveness cannot be forced. But just because they are temporarily unavailable does not mean they have disappeared.

2025 in Images

Outlook for 2026: A Direction, not a Promise

Much of what one might describe as the outlook after a difficult year sounds like damage control, administration, and “just don't do anything wrong.” At least, that's how I feel. Respect my limits more, don't overwork myself, and so on. That's important, too. My motto for 2026 will be “Back on solid ground.”

But I don't want to stop there. That sounds so static. Once I'm back on solid ground, I want to take a leap. I want to start the new year on a positive note. Without any concrete plans, but with anticipation. Something I can work towards without it becoming a chore.
2026 as a year that moves forward again, not inwardly managed.
Travel, exhibitions, places, conversations, encounters, and working, playing, and experimenting in the studio with curiosity again.

Thank You

Finally, I would like to say thank you.
Thank you to everyone who reads, thinks, comments, or quietly follows along. Thank you to those who have purchased my art and thus directly support my work. And thank you to everyone who accompanies me on my journey—through conversations, feedback, encounters, or simply through interest, especially my partner and my sons, who are always there for me.

As always, special thanks also go to Judith Peters, who reignites the annual blog spectacle every year. This creates space for very different voices to coexist. Without competition, without comparisons, but with a lot of openness and exchange.

If you have written your own year in review, please link to it in the comments. I am very much looking forward to reading through all the texts. I promise to take the time to do so and to comment.

Thank you for being here.

Further down, behind the village, a wide expanse of ice opens up, where life suddenly seems lively and playful. Children pull sledges, adults skate, someone falls, someone else carries goods across the ice.

Bruegel's Hunters in the Snow shows winter at that time in all its harshness. But also as a world of its own, in which social life took place.

In the mid-16th century, winters were exceptionally cold – much colder than we experience today in Central Europe. Rivers froze over for weeks or even months. Canals and lakes became so reliably frozen that they could be crossed by carts. In the Netherlands, where canals and waterways crisscross the entire country, the water network was transformed in winter into an extensive network of ice roads.

Winter became a season that determined everything: food, work, trade, mobility. Food in particular was a constant battle against scarcity. Supplies had to last until spring, and that was by no means guaranteed. The cold had far-reaching consequences for agriculture and the economy. Crop failures were more frequent, growing seasons were shorter, and some regions suffered from recurring famines.

But for people, the frozen state of the landscape was not merely an obstacle. When the waterways froze over, new routes emerged. Markets were held on frozen lakes, which enlivened community life in unexpected ways. Ice skating, sled races, other games and competitions became part of village life, which would not have been possible without the stable ice.

All this made winter, despite its severity, a social season. Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Hunters in the Snow captures with extraordinary insight how deeply winter affected people's lives.

Bruegel's Hunters in the Snow: A Village Frozen in Winter

Bruegel created the painting in 1565 for Nicolaes Jonghelinck, a wealthy Antwerp art collector and financial administrator. Jonghelinck owned several works by Bruegel and commissioned a series of large-format monthly paintings for his country house. These depicted the seasons, rural life and everyday human existence in harmony with the rhythms of nature. Originally, there were six panels, each covering two months. Hunters in the Snow represents December/January.

The paintings are all approximately 120 × 160 cm in size and are said to have hung all around Jonghelinck's dining room. The sight must have been magnificent for his guests.

Today, only five panels remain, three of which, namely Gloomy Day (early spring), Return of the Herd (autumn) and Hunters in the Snow (winter), are in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Early Summer, The Hay Harvest, can be seen in Prague at the Lobkowicz Palace in Prague Castle, while Late Summer, The Corn Harvest, is owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Spring was probably lost as early as the 17th 

Hunters in the Snow is considered the best known of these monthly paintings and one of the most famous winter paintings in art history. It is the most atmospheric work in the series. The contrast between the exhausted homecoming in the foreground and the lively activity on the ice, the mixture of austerity and liveliness, immediately catches the eye.

But the real reason why this painting has become an iconic work lies in the way Bruegel guides the viewer's gaze, how he constructs space and how he combines the everyday with incredible narrative depth.

What makes the painting special is its viewpoint. Bruegel raises the horizon extremely high and allows us to look down on the landscape from a slope, as it were. We are not in the middle of the action, but neither are we far enough away to be detached. We are observers – much like Bruegel himself.

This composition forces our gaze in a clear direction. From the dark figures in the foreground, the hunters, and the dogs, it glides down to the bright village, continues across the ice and finally to the distant mountains. Many art historians therefore describe this painting as one of the most sophisticated examples of visual guidance in the Dutch Renaissance.

And then there are the details! You get the feeling that every little spot in the painting tells a little story: the man slipping on the ice, the woman gathering brushwood on the bridge, children playing with sledges, women by the fire, the lonely bird on the bare tree.

Behind the church, you can see a building with smoke rising from it. A group of people seem to be trying to extinguish the fire or save what can still be saved. On the other side of the river, a figure is carrying a long ladder across the ice. He is probably heading for the burning house.

Winter fires were a real danger, and attempts to extinguish them were desperate because the water was frozen.

Beyond the large ice surface, a lone hunter shoots at birds, possibly ducks. If you look closely, you can even see the gunfire.

And on the ice, there are several groups of children who are not only pulling sledges, but also playing with iron tyres, sticks, or round discs – some of which are games that are hardly comprehensible today.
Bruegel documents folk culture here.

Despite its richness, the picture does not appear overloaded. Everything fits together harmoniously. The tranquillity, the winter silence, is preserved. Bruegel's art is an invitation to look closely.

Involuntary Climate Chronicler

In the mid-16th century, winters were not just particularly cold; there was a period that we now refer to as the Little Ice Age. Roughly speaking, it began in the 13th century and lasted until around the end of the 19th century, but it reached its peak during Bruegel's lifetime.

Geographically, the Little Ice Age mainly affected Europe, North America and parts of Asia. It was particularly noticeable in Northern Europe: in the Netherlands, present-day Belgium, Northern Germany, Scandinavia and the British Isles.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, a new form of painting developed in the Netherlands, moving away from major religious themes towards everyday life, landscapes and bourgeois life. People wanted to see paintings that reflected their own world. And in winter, this world largely took place on the ice.

Between the late 16th and 17th centuries, no other region in Europe produced as many winter landscapes as the northern Netherlands. While Italian, French and Spanish artists tended to treat winter as a marginal motif or symbolic episode, Dutch painters made it an independent, recurring theme in their work.

The country was flat, rich in water and crisscrossed by canals. When these froze over, life changed completely. Winter offered clear contrasts, graphic structures, a reduced colour palette and, at the same time, an infinite number of little stories.

Hendrick Avercamp is considered the winter painter of Dutch art, or at least the one who consistently made the winter motif his trademark. No other artist of his time dealt with winter as persistently, as comprehensively and as variably as he did.

Frozen rivers, canals, lakes, crowds of people on the ice – this is his terrain. His paintings are densely populated, detailed and cheerful.

Bruegel's Hunters in the Snow also depicts cheerfulness, but it never dominates the landscape; rather, it is always embedded within it. This makes the vulnerability of humans palpable.

This begins with the size of the landscape. The people are small, placed almost casually in this vast winter world. The space does not belong to them. The slope, the sky and the frozen surfaces take up much more visual space than the figures. Even in the foreground, it is not the hunters who dominate, but the snow, the slope, and the trees. Humans are part of this landscape, not its benchmark.

This is a crucial difference to many Italian Renaissance paintings, in which the landscape is often a stage for humans. With Bruegel, it is the other way round: humans are an episode in the space of nature.

The mountains in the background of Hunters in the Snow have no real geographical connection to the region depicted; as mentioned, the Netherlands is flat. But Bruegel was one of the few Northern European artists of his time who had seen the Alps himself. On his trip to Italy in the early 1550s, he crossed the Alps, and this experience had a lasting impact on him. These mountain landscapes reappear repeatedly in his later paintings.

In Hunters in the Snow, the mountains enlarge the space enormously. They draw the eye backwards, opening up the picture and giving it a depth that extends beyond village life. This makes the landscape seem even more powerful, even more comprehensive – and the people in it even smaller.

Then there is this barrenness. Not dramatic, silent. Hardly any foliage, bare trees, muted colours, in contrast to the crows – almost like harbingers of death. The visual restraint creates a feeling of deprivation. The world has little to offer at the moment. The fact that the hunters return almost empty-handed is not a narrative climax, it is a matter of fact.

The tavern sign hangs crookedly above the heads of the people sitting around the campfire. It is unstable, moved by the wind, not firmly anchored. It looks as if it could fall down at any moment. A small image of the uncertainty of human existence. At the same time, it shows a religious vision of hunting that has nothing to do with the reality beneath it. This, too, is vulnerability: the distance between ideal and life.

The posture of the people implies a subtle but physically palpable form of vulnerability. No one is standing upright. The hunters are bent over, the people on the ice are slipping, stumbling, balancing. Even in play, their bodies are uncertain. The ice bears their weight – but only under certain conditions. One wrong step and you fall. Nature allows movement, but it guarantees nothing.

The fire in the background is also part of this. A house catches fire while everything else is frozen. Water is there, but it cannot be used. People are dependent on elements beyond their control. Cold does not protect against disasters; it even exacerbates them. The fact that this scene is so small does not make it any less significant – on the contrary. It shows how casually existential threats could arise in everyday life.

In his painting, Bruegel documents the climate without seeking to explain or name it. Not in a scientific sense, but in an existential one. He captures how climate feels, how it shapes everyday life and how people navigate it. Not in collapse, but in constantly adapting to conditions that are greater than themselves.

Winter Wonderland

The painting, with its tranquil, snow-covered landscape and lively ice scenes, corresponds to what we associate with the Christmas spirit today, even if Bruegel himself did not have this in mind.

Since the 19th century, classic winter landscapes have been increasingly used in reproductive art. Hunters in the Snow is one of the most famous classic winter paintings in the world and is often printed on postcards and Christmas cards. A popular myth even claims that it is the most common secular Christmas card motif worldwide.

Of course, this cannot be proven. But that doesn't stop me from wishing you a Merry Christmas with this motif as well.

The colours also lend themselves well to glazing. They are applied layer by layer, yet remain transparent. The light penetrates the layers and is reflected by the paper, thus becoming part of the artwork. It's an effect that I really love.

Title: A Path Through the Fields from the art series A Walk Through the Parks.

Watercolour: A Medium that Served

Even in the Middle Ages and early modern times, there were incredibly detailed watercolour works. And yet, for a long time, the medium was not considered ‘real art’.

Watercolour as a technique was not intended for what art was supposed to be at the time: colourful, monumental, durable and representative, if necessary worked out layer by layer over a long period of time.

The transparency of watercolour, its light delicacy, its lack of opacity and its water solubility automatically led to it being considered uncertain and fleeting. A medium that can be destroyed by moisture is not suitable for church interiors, palaces or public spaces, where these places become damp and clammy in winter. The works of art would have run during the first monastery winter.

Today, watercolour can be used on surfaces such as wood or canvas because there are special absorbent primers available. But this is a modern development. Historically, things were very different. In the past, watercolour worked practically only on paper or other absorbent, paper-like substrates (parchment, vellum). But for centuries, paper did not have a high status.

Even the most precious manuscripts were considered more as crafts or repositories of knowledge than as autonomous works of art. Paper was fragile, small in format, not monumental – all characteristics that spoke against its classification as ‘high art’.

The characteristics of the medium and the value of the material automatically relegated watercolour to the role of a working medium. Artists used it because it was quick, direct, inexpensive, and practical as a tool for studies, drafts, or travel sketches. It was the material of choice when you wanted to capture ideas before you really got started.

Even works that hang in museums today – botanical illustrations, topographical studies, nature observations – were classified at the time as crafts or documentation.

Today, we appreciate the precision, aesthetic quality and artistic signature of the artists. But in their day, even if they were technically outstanding, these works were not classified as autonomous art. They had a function – and anything functional automatically slipped out of the sphere of high art. This even applies to Dürer's nature studies: they were brilliant, but not works of art in the sense of the time, rather part of his working process.

Water and Paper in the East

In East Asia, water-based painting – ink and coloured ink on paper or silk – had been a highly regarded art form since the Middle Ages. The tradition of literati painting deliberately focused on transparency, reduction and controlled spontaneity. While Europe long treated watercolour as merely a working medium, in China and Japan it was regarded as an expression of cultural education and artistic mastery.

What was considered too fleeting and impermanent in Europe was an aesthetic ideal there. The quiet, the incomplete, the permeable interplay of water, pigment, and paper.
Much later, this tradition also influenced European modernism. Artists such as Kandinsky and Klee were explicitly interested in the way East Asian painters worked with line, surface, and emptiness.

England Discovers Watercolour Painting

In the 18th century, the tasks, expectations, and locations of art changed, and watercolour suddenly found its place in areas where art had previously been virtually non-existent.

England was the perfect breeding ground. Landscape played a much greater role there than in France, Italy, or Germany, not only in painting, but in culture as a whole. English garden design, the enthusiasm for the ‘picturesque’, the longing for nature as a counterpoint to the densely populated urban environment.

In addition, England had a pronounced desire to travel. Although the famous ‘Grand Tour’ was a pan-European phenomenon, the English, at least the wealthy, saw it as an integral part of their own cultural identity.

Landscape painting gained in prestige, and it was in this genre in particular that watercolour was able to play to its strengths: atmosphere, light, weather, fleeting impressions. Artists such as Sandby, Girtin and later Turner recognised the potential and developed a visual language that no longer looked like coloured sketches, but like independent works of art. With them, an artistic self-confidence emerged for the first time, which said that this medium is not only practical, it is also expressive.

England also had a strong middle-class art-buying class earlier than many other countries. A new culture of collecting and education emerged. People travelled more, took a greater interest in nature, science and landscape, and sought images that could capture these experiences. Watercolour was ideal for this: light, portable, quick, immediate and much cheaper than large-format oil paintings.

At the same time, there was a growing desire for private art that did not hang monumentally on a church wall, but found a place in one's own home. Small formats became socially acceptable – and with them a medium that works in small formats per se.

The Society of Painters in Water Colours

At the beginning of the 19th century, watercolour painting in England had long been more than just a medium for sketches. There was a lively scene, collectors were interested, and works were created that were clearly intended as autonomous art. However, the official institution refused to recognise them.

The Royal Academy still treated watercolour painting as a minor art form, gave it hardly any exhibition space, and fundamentally regarded it as inferior to oil painting. Out of a mixture of frustration and a desire for change, the Society of Painters in Water Colours was founded in London in 1804.

A group of artists – including William Frederick Wells and others closely associated with the emerging English landscape tradition – wanted to create an organisation that not only accepted the medium, but deliberately placed it at the centre. They wanted a forum for exhibitions that was not dependent on the Royal Academy, an audience that did not regard watercolours as a by-product, and a platform on which they could develop their own artistic language.

The founding was an act of self-assertion. Away from the strict Royal Academy, watercolour artists were able to pursue their own aesthetic paths, try out new techniques, cultivate atmospheric work and, above all, develop a visual language that did not have to measure up to oil.

The Society organised its own exhibitions, in which only watercolours were presented – and with the same standards that had previously only been applied to oil paintings. This changed public perception enormously. Suddenly, watercolours were no longer relegated to study sheets and drawings, but hung as autonomous works of art at the centre of an exhibition.

At the same time, the Society created a market. Collectors began to take a specific interest in watercolours, dealers included them in their programmes, and prices rose. Watercolour thus became an economically viable art form, which in turn encouraged young artists to pursue the medium seriously and not just regard it as a minor matter.

The Society of Painters in Water Colours was the driving force that brought watercolour out of obscurity in the early 19th century. It gave the medium status, publicity, and self-confidence.

Europe is Watching

The Society's exhibitions were so successful that they attracted attention on the continent. Artists from France, Germany and Italy were fascinated by the English freedom in dealing with landscape, the loose application of paint and the possibility of painting on the go.

French artists such as Delacroix used watercolour on their travels to North Africa or other colonial areas because it was the only medium that worked under such conditions.
In Germany, the spread of watercolour painting was closely linked to Romanticism and the Biedermeier period. Caspar David Friedrich did not use it excessively, but it became increasingly popular in his circle. Especially in the Dresden school and later in Munich circles, watercolour was increasingly used to capture observations of nature in a more subtle way.

Watercolour thus took on a role of its own in the travel narratives of the globalised 19th century. Naturalists, explorers, and artists who travelled to the Arctic, India, Africa or Latin America had practically only two options: drawing or watercolour. Oil would have been simply unusable on a ship or in tropical conditions at that time.

At the same time, English watercolourists increasingly influenced the art trade and art education. Their works were exhibited on the continent, acquired by international buyers, and watercolour emerged as a medium that was truly visible on the art market for the first time.

Expression of a Young Nation

In the United States, too, watercolour was initially a practical medium for surveyors, military artists and explorers who mapped or documented the vast country. American landscapes – vastness, weather, untouched nature – could be captured immediately with watercolour. Early on, the technique was therefore present in a context that lay between documentation and artistic observation. It was never considered quite as ‘inferior’ there as it was in Europe.

However, watercolour painting became really popular in the second half of the 19th century, when American art increasingly sought to break away from European academicism. The sketchy, immediate, documentary style suited a young nation that was searching for its own identity. It was faster, more direct, less standardised and allowed for a freer, more experimental approach.

Artists such as Winslow Homer used watercolour not as a sketching medium, but as a fully-fledged medium, often even preferring it. His works from Maine, the Caribbean and Florida show how well watercolour lends itself to fleeting light moods, moving water and weather – motifs that became extremely important in American art. Homer's success finally legitimised the medium in the United States.

Watercolour and Modernism

In the early 20th century, watercolour was initially liberated by modernism. For artists such as Paul Klee, Kandinsky and Macke, the medium became a place for experimentation, colour fields, rhythm, and symbolism. Watercolour was well suited to lightness, playfulness and spontaneity, which fitted in perfectly with the avant-garde. In the Bauhaus movement, it often served as a material for studies of colour, structure, and form. But this time without any hierarchy.

Many of these artists were subjected to a combination of exhibition bans, sales bans and the professional designation ‘non-Aryan’ during the Nazi regime, which effectively prevented them from earning a living as artists in Germany. Added to this was massive political and social pressure, which for many meant that flight or working in secret were the only options.

Emil Nolde is one of the few artists for whom a written personal work ban is on record. He sympathised with Nazi ideology, hoped for recognition by the regime, and was a member of several Nazi organisations. But his expressionist works were considered ‘non-German’, “chaotic” and ‘degenerate’ by the Nazis. In 1937, his works were removed from museums on a large scale. In 1941, he was personally banned from working.

Not only was he not allowed to exhibit or sell his work – he was officially not allowed to paint at all. Watercolour, in combination with gouache and ink, was his way out because it was easier to hide. Watercolours do not smell, dry quickly and do not produce any waste. Everything can disappear inconspicuously in seconds.

This is how his famous Unpainted Pictures came into being. A collection of around 1,300 works that are central to the myth of the persecuted artist, even though the ban on painting could not shake Nolde's political convictions.

After the Second World War, the role of watercolour shifted back to the personal and sketch-like. Many movements (Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Minimal Art) tended to favour canvas and large-format techniques.
But artists such as Andrew Wyeth nevertheless brought the medium enormous popularity in the USA.

One Tool for Many Uses

In the late 20th century, watercolour finally took on a role that was neither academic nor avant-garde. Instead, it became a medium that was widely used – by professional artists and amateurs alike.

Watercolour is still inexpensive, easy to transport, requires little material, and does not even need a studio. Even the smallest workspace is sufficient. This creates a kind of democratic openness: it is no longer a preliminary stage of painting, nor is it merely a tool for experimentation at the forefront of the art world, but rather a material that allows many people to work artistically in their own way, whether seriously or playfully.

Today, watercolour painting is more diverse than ever. There is no central direction, no style that sets the tone. Instead, there are several strands coexisting, influencing each other but not dominating. Watercolour has arrived in contemporary art. Many artists use it deliberately because of its transparency, its delicacy and its ability to make breaks, transitions, and fragility visible. For this reason, I like to use it for my nude series, for example.

At the same time, watercolour remains hugely popular in the field of illustration, from children's books and editorial art to graphic novels. Nature illustration has also been experiencing a revival in recent years, not least because watercolour can depict organic forms and fine structures very precisely and atmospherically at the same time.

Urban sketching, botanicals, sketchbooks as diary or travel formats, mixed media, nature journaling – many of these movements would be unthinkable without watercolour. Social media has reinforced this trend: watercolour is photogenic, easy to share and accessible, which in turn attracts new generations to experiment with it.

I have set myself the goal of explaining these terms one by one. Art must be accessible to everyone. That starts with language. But it also helps me to organise my knowledge and make it accessible to myself by not simply using vague technical terms, but by formulating exactly what I mean. This time, we're talking about trompe-l'oeil.

What is a Trompe-l'oeil?

The term trompe-l'oeil literally means ‘deceive the eye’. And that is exactly what it is. A painting that is deliberately painted to deceive the eye. The subject matter should appear to be a real, physical object and not a painting. It is not about painting realistically, at least not only. It is about optical illusion. At first glance, the eye should believe that it is seeing real letters on a wooden board (as in the cover image (Office Board by John F Peto)), or a frame, a padlock, a niche.

To achieve this, trompe-l'oeil artists work with extreme precision, using light and shadow, the illusion of material surfaces (wood grain, paper edges, fabric folds, metal sheen) and very clear spatiality. Typically, objects are painted as if they were lying on the painting surface or protruding from it. A letter fastened with a nail, a piece of paper with a corner that appears to be bent. It often seems as if the painting itself is an everyday object – a notice board, the back of a painting, a drawer, a window.

A trompe-l'oeil is the deliberate staging of the boundary between image and reality. The image pretends not to be an image.

The Heyday of Trompe-l'oeil

The idea of painting a picture in such a way that it is believed to be real is almost as old as Western art itself.

The earliest examples can be found in Roman wall paintings. In Pompeii and Herculaneum, walls were designed to appear to show windows, protruding marble slabs or architectural niches, where in reality there was only plaster. These illusionary spaces were astonishingly sophisticated, and the artists deliberately played with perception.

In ancient art literature, there is a famous anecdote attributed to Pliny the Elder.
Zeuxis and Parrhasios, two famous Greek painters, competed against each other. They wanted to prove which of them was the better illusionist. Zeuxis painted grapes that looked so convincing that birds flew in to peck at them. He was sure of his victory and asked Parrhasios to finally reveal his work. Parrhasios asked Zeuxis to pull the curtain aside, revealing that the curtain was painted. Zeuxis is said to have replied that he had deceived nature, but Parrhasios had deceived an artist.

Since then, many artists have referred to this story. There are countless works of art in which a new space opens up behind a curtain that has been pulled back.

But trompe-l'oeil experienced its heyday during the Baroque period. At that time, art was designed to impress and overwhelm. Illusion, appearance, and reality played a central role, not only in painting, but also in architecture and theatre. In churches, ceilings were painted in such a way that they appeared to open upwards, figures seemed to float, and entire rooms appeared larger.

However, trompe-l'oeil was not at its strongest in Italian Baroque, but in the northern Netherlands. Two things came together there: a great appreciation for detailed still lifes, and a Protestant culture in which religious images had become less common. Artists focused more on everyday objects, materials, and precision – ideal conditions for illusionistic effects.

Why French, of all Languages?

The idea originated more or less in Greece and the Roman Empire, the heyday took place in the Netherlands, but the term is French? Why is that?

It was coined in the 17th century. By this time, Italy had long since lost its power. Global trade routes had shifted. Atlantic trade (Spain, Portugal, later the Netherlands and England) became more important than Mediterranean trade. As a result, Venice lost much of its importance. The balance of power in Europe shifted. France, Spain and later the Habsburg Empire became centralised great powers. Italy, on the other hand, remained a fragmented mosaic of city-states, principalities and republics. It was unable to defend itself against external intervention. The Italian Wars (from 1494) were devastating.

Artists still travelled to Italy to learn from the old masters, but art follows power, because large commissions, prestigious projects and resources migrate to where the political centres are.

In practice, i.e. in painting and sculpture itself, Italy remained the leader well into the 17th century. However, linguistic and theoretical interpretative authority slowly shifted to France.
And so the term originated in the milieu of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in Paris, where art criticism, theory, and terminology set the tone throughout Europe.

At that time, France was the cultural centre that systematically recorded and disseminated terms. Art writers and theorists described such illusionistic effects with the expression trompe-l’Œil, and because this term was extremely precise and clearly formulated the intention to deceive, it was adopted by other countries.

19th Century: USA

In the 19th century, trompe-l'oeil experienced a second heyday in the United States. From the 1870s onwards, a group of painters developed who specialised in illusionistic still lifes with great precision. The best-known names are William Michael Harnett, John F. Peto and John Haberle. They adopted the trompe-l'oeil principle of Dutch Baroque painting, but translated it into a different visual world: no Baroque curtain tricks, but objects from everyday American life. These included pinboards, instruments, newspapers, receipts, books, tobacco tins and workshop utensils. Things that came from everyday life.

There was a growing middle class that was interested in technically impressive but not symbolically overloaded images. Trompe-l'oeil fit well into this culture because it showcased skills and had a certain playfulness without violating moral expectations. At the same time, it remained ‘clean’ and technically clear, which appealed to many American collectors.

Escaping Criticism

When writing about trompe-l'oeil, one of the most famous works cannot be overlooked. ‘Escaping Criticism’ (1874) by Pere Borrell del Caso uses an effect that works immediately – even on people who otherwise rarely look at art. The boy, who appears to be climbing over the frame, creates a very direct, almost theatrical moment of deception. This makes it extremely memorable.

In terms of art history, Dutch Baroque works belong to the ‘classical canon’, but this Spanish painting is one of the works that defines the genre for a broad audience, even though it was not particularly famous at the time of its creation.

The frame is part of the picture's effect: the transition between ‘painting space’ and ‘real space’ is staged. The boy's gaze seems directed outwards, as if he wants to move into the world outside the painting. Little is known for certain about the artist's exact intention. Some art historians suspect that the work could be a kind of criticism of conservative art criticism. The title naturally suggests this conclusion.

From the Screen to the City

Nowadays, it is rare to find modern trompe-l'oeil in the historical sense in museums and galleries, but there are many works that take the principle further, playing with reality, surface, and perception.

Trompe-l'oeil is particularly powerful in public spaces because it plays with architecture and the cityscape. Houses are given apparent balconies, windows, openwork walls or entire façades that ‘open up’. This mural art is often large-scale, technically very clean, and exploits the effect of extending the painted space into the real city. In many cities, this is a deliberately used design element to visually enliven dreary or closed façades or to create historical references. It is particularly widespread in France, Spain, Germany, Canada, and the USA.

But contemporary art also knows other forms of trompe-l'oeil. In street art, artists such as Julian Beever and Edgar Müller work with chalk drawings that only appear three-dimensional from a certain angle. These are essentially modern anamorphoses, a related form of illusion. Other artists apply the principle to objects. They paint everyday objects in such a way that they appear to be something else, or they create sculptures that look like two-dimensional drawings.

In addition, there is also a more experimental approach in contemporary art, for example when artists paint hyperrealistic still lifes that deliberately recall Baroque trompe-l'oeil motifs, but fill them with contemporary objects – packaging, newspaper pages, digital devices. Painting takes up the old principle, but plays with contemporary viewing habits.

Trompe-l'oeil has evolved from a clearly defined genre into an open concept that appears wherever the appeal of deception is at stake. Façade painting is only the most visible form of this.

In the early Middle Ages in Europe, roughly between the 5th and 11th centuries, artists' palettes were significantly limited. Many pigments that were common in ancient times were lost with the Roman Empire because the knowledge of how to produce them disappeared or trade routes were interrupted. This included Egyptian blue.

Theoretically, there were some blue pigments available, such as azurite, a naturally occurring copper mineral, or indigo, a dye of plant origin. And they were also used, as in Irish book illumination (for example, in the Book of Kells). However, azurite was sensitive to moisture and alkalis, i.e. to the lime in frescoes, and could therefore discolour over time, from bright blue to greenish or brownish.

The only bright blue that has survived from this period can be found in Byzantine art. In the large church mosaics of Constantinople, Ravenna and Thessaloniki, the blue areas still shine today because they are made of coloured glass.

Lapis Lazuli – The Blue of the Gods

Lapis lazuli, a semi-precious stone, still comes almost exclusively from a single region: present-day Afghanistan, more precisely from the mines of Badakhshan in the north-east of the country, which have been in operation for over 6,000 years. From there, lapis lazuli travelled along long trade routes – through Persia, Mesopotamia, and Egypt – to the Mediterranean region. Even in ancient times, it was considered a symbol of the divine. The Sumerians, Egyptians and later also the Greeks used it for amulets, jewellery and artistic inlays.

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, lapis lazuli was virtually unavailable in Europe for many centuries. It was only with the flourishing of medieval trade with the Orient, mainly through the Crusades, Venetian trade networks and contact with Islamic cultures, that the material returned to the West. At the same time, a new understanding of colour and material began to develop around 1200–1300.

It was the era of Gothic cathedrals, rich manuscripts and fresco painting in Italy, and everywhere, bright colours played an aesthetic and theological role.

The knowledge of how to extract colours from stones was fundamentally available – pigments had been produced from minerals since ancient times. But lapis lazuli presented a particular challenge.

Simply grinding it produced a grey-blue powder because light-coloured rock particles and pure lazurite were mixed together. But only the fine lazurite grain contains the intense colour. So it had to be separated from the rest of the rock somehow.

When and where exactly someone came up with the idea of treating the ground substance with wax, resin and lye is not documented. Presumably in northern Italy, probably in the 13th century, but no one knows for sure.

In any case, the oldest written description can be found in Cennino Cennini's Libro dell'Arte (around 1400).

The result of this process was ultramarine, the purest and most vibrant blue known to painting – and also the most expensive pigment of all.

Its name is derived from the Latin ultra marinum – “beyond the sea” – a reference to its distant origin. In European painting of the 14th and 15th centuries, ultramarine was so precious that it was usually charged separately from the rest of the work. Clients specified in the contract which parts were to be painted with it.

Ultramarine did not fade in air or light. It could be mixed well with other pigments without reacting and had a special optical depth. A velvety, transparent glow that was unique in frescoes and tempera.

Because it was more expensive than gold, it was often used only for the central, most sacred or most valuable parts of a painting – such as the Virgin Mary's cloak or the sky in scenes with Christ.

This led to blue becoming the sacred colour par excellence.

How Blue Found its Meaning

In early cultures, blue was not a symbolically charged colour. Red, black, white and yellow dominated as carriers of fixed meanings. Red stood for life or power, black for death or fertility, white for purity. Since blue hardly ever occurred in nature in a stable form, it played only a marginal role in painting.

Many ancient languages, including Ancient Greek and Hebrew, did not even have a separate word for blue. In Greek, blue and dark shades were often subsumed under ‘kyaneos’ (dark, shiny) or ‘glaukos’ (greenish, shimmering).

In the Odyssey, Homer describes the sea as ‘wine-coloured’ (‘oinops pontos’) – i.e. shimmering reddish-brown, not blue. This has less to do with colour blindness than with a different understanding of colour. Ancient cultures classified colours according to brightness and material effect, rather than wavelength or hue. It was not until the Middle Ages and early modern times that a clear awareness of colour as a separate category emerged, with corresponding terms in European languages.

In the early advanced civilisations, i.e. in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Aegean world, art was not representational in the modern sense, but symbolic and functional. Landscapes were not depicted, but rather gods, rulers, rituals, symbols of power or the afterlife. The sky was not a motif, but a place that could be symbolically represented by gold or black.

Blue was therefore not a necessary ‘natural pigment’ because the sky, water or air were not understood as subjects, but as contextual surfaces that served a symbolic order. Landscape painting, in which one really had to paint the sky, simply did not exist. The idea that painting could create an illusion of space or nature did not arise until much later.

The production of Egyptian blue around 2500 BC was therefore more of a technical achievement than the result of a deliberate search for a ‘meaningful’ colour. The effort required to obtain it made it something special. And through its connection with the sky and water, blue gradually took on a spiritual dimension. In Egypt, it stood for the divine, the eternal, for protection and rebirth. These were qualities associated with the sky and the Nile.

In the 1st century BC and AD, artists began to depict depth, atmosphere, and sky tones. In the wall paintings of Pompeii and Herculaneum, blue actually appears as a room colour – mostly in the form of Egyptian blue or azurite, often mixed with white to achieve light effects.

However, after the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West, this type of representation also disappeared. In medieval art, the landscape once again had no significance. The pictorial space became flat, symbolic, divine. There was no need for pigment for the sky or horizon because this sky did not exist in a perspectival sense.

When lapis lazuli was used in European painting, it was initially primarily a symbol of prestige. The pigment was extremely expensive; those who could afford it demonstrated both wealth and piety. The blue stood for the sky, for purity. But it was not religious symbolism that led to the use of blue; rather, the rarity and preciousness of the material contributed to its becoming sacred.

A Coincidence with Consequences – Prussian Blue

From the 16th century onwards, as maritime trade expanded, indigo arrived in Europe in large quantities and also found its way into the workshops of local painters, initially as an additive for colouring glazes and inks.

It was not well suited for paste applications, but it mixed excellently with water or glue and produced a soft, hazy blue that remained transparent in thin layers. This is why indigo gradually found its way into watercolour painting.

However, it took another two centuries before watercolours became an art medium in their own right; initially, they were mainly used for sketches, maps, and illustrations. But long before that, a new blue appeared in the art world. How much of this story actually corresponds to the facts can no longer be said with certainty today. In any case, the legend goes like this:

In 1706, the colour maker Heinrich Diesbach wanted to produce a red pigment in his Berlin workshop. But he ran out of the potash he needed. The theologian, alchemist, physician, and naturalist Johann Conrad Dippel lived in the neighbourhood. Dippel was eccentric, searching for the philosopher's stone and experimenting with animal bones, blood, and chemicals. Incidentally, there are other legends surrounding him, which, it is said, came to Mary Shelley's attention when she travelled through Germany in 1814/1815 and also visited Frankenstein Castle, Dippel's birthplace …

But that's just a side note. In any case, Diesbach runs out of potash and Dippel gives him some of his own. However, due to his experiments with animal materials, presumably dried blood, it was contaminated. The organic nitrogen compounds reacted with iron compounds to form a complex iron cyanide. The result was a powerful, deep blue iron hexacyanoferrate – chemically stable, colour-intensive and completely new.

Unlike ultramarine from lapis lazuli, Prussian blue (also known as Berlin blue, iron blue or, after one manufacturer, Miloro blue) was easy to produce and inexpensive. The discovery quickly spread throughout Europe.

Around 1724, chemist John Woodward published a description of the pigment in London under the name Prussian Blue.

From then on, it was produced on a large scale in England, France and Holland.

The pigment was lightfast and had an intense cool tone. It made blue available to everyone and thus changed more than just art. A few decades after its discovery, it was ubiquitous in artists' palettes, printing shops and factories. The pigment is still used in medicine today. It binds metal ions in the body and therefore serves as an antidote to radioactive caesium and thallium.

From the 18th century onwards, Prussian blue became one of the most important pigments in art. In Japan, Katsushika Hokusai used it for his famous Great Wave off Kanagawa (around 1830). In Europe, it appears in the works of Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Antoine Watteau, Thomas Gainsborough, Caspar David Friedrich and many others.

Goethe also experimented with Prussian blue in his theory of colours.

From Craftsmanship to Chemistry 

The discovery of Prussian blue showed for the first time that colour could be obtained from chemical reactions and not just from grinding natural substances. But no one could fully explain the reaction, let alone derive new pigments from it in a targeted manner. Although it was known from experience that copper produces green or blue, iron produces ochre, reddish brown or black, lead produces white and mercury produces vermilion, there was no chemical explanation. People spoke of ‘metal spirits’ or ‘vapours,’ but they did not know what actually happened during the colour formation process.

It was not until the 18th century that people began to systematically investigate these experiences. This marked a transition from empirical knowledge to scientific understanding. Between about 1772 and 1789, Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier discovered that a substance increases in weight during combustion because it absorbs oxygen from its surroundings, thereby forming new compounds – oxides. Until then, it had been believed that a ‘fire substance’ escaped during combustion or rusting.

Lavoisier thus became the founder of modern chemistry. The new understanding of combustion led to improvements in metallurgy, in the manufacture of glass, ceramics, unfortunately also explosives, but also medicine and later to the development of the chemical industry in the 19th century. And it led to new insights into the manufacture of paints, as it was recognised that oxides are responsible for the colour effect of metals.

Cobalt Blue

Cobalt ores have been known since the Middle Ages, especially in the Ore Mountains, Saxony and Scandinavia. Miners hated them because they gave off foul-smelling, toxic fumes when smelted and did not yield any silver, even though they occurred in silver-bearing veins. They therefore considered them to be ‘bewitched’ and called them goblin ores (Kobolterze).

However, as early as the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, it was known that these ores could be used to produce bluish glazes (e.g. in Venetian glass or Meissen porcelain). At first, it was thought that the colour was a property of the mineral or the smelting process – not of a specific metal. Later, from around the 17th century onwards, the first assumptions arose that copper could be the cause, because many known blue pigments (azurite, Egyptian blue, copper green) were copper compounds.

But Georg Brandt, a Swedish chemist, discovered around 1730 that the blue colour was not caused by copper, but by a previously unknown metal. Brandt isolated it for the first time and named it cobalt.

This was one of the first discoveries of a ‘new’ metal ever.

Then, about 70 years later, Louis Jacques Thénard (1802) took up these findings. Thanks to Brandt, Lavoisier and general advances in chemistry, he now knew that cobalt was a chemical element, that oxides produced specific, reproducible colours, and that pigments could be produced in a targeted manner by controlling their composition.

So he experimented with cobalt oxide and aluminium oxide, heated them to high temperatures, and finally obtained stable, clear cobalt blue.

When cobalt blue came onto the market at the beginning of the 19th century (1802), painters had three qualitatively different but technically combinable shades of blue at their disposal for the first time.

Ultramarine was warm, velvety, with a slightly reddish undertone
Prussian blue was deep, dark, almost black-blue, with a greenish sheen.
Cobalt blue was neutral, cooler, clearer, airier, a pure, medium sky blue.

Discovering the Landscape

Until the 18th century, landscape painting was considered a ‘lower genre’ in the hierarchy of academic painting. History painting was at the top because it was considered intellectual. Landscape was an accessory, decorative but not meaningful.

That changed. In the late 17th and especially in the 18th century, landscape slowly developed from a background motif to a theme in its own right. Painting schools in Holland, Italy and England began to show nature not only as a backdrop for mythological scenes, but as a space for experience.
When cobalt blue became available, it encountered a generation of artists who already understood light, air and atmosphere as central motifs.
The need to paint nature thus preceded the availability of colours.

For the first time, cobalt blue had the optical character of daylight, a medium, neutral, slightly muted sky blue that could be lightened in glazes without turning grey. This was ideal for the new themes of sky, distance and aerial perspective.
The new colour reinforced the trend. Technique followed artistic interest, and artistic interest in turn followed the new possibilities offered by technique.

After cobalt blue, chemistry began to systematically address pigment production. The major European laboratories – in Paris, London, Munich – sought ways to produce natural colours synthetically and more cheaply.

The aim was to create pigments that were lightfast, opaque, inexpensive and chemically stable. The next big step was synthetic ultramarine, developed in France in 1828.
With the artificial variant, ultramarine was now affordable for everyone.

New Connections

In the second half of the 19th century, new cobalt compounds were added, such as cerulean blue, a light, greenish-blue pigment (around 1860).

The clear, slightly greenish sky blue became particularly important for landscape and plein air painters. The Impressionists loved it because it could be used to paint atmospheric effects. Monet is said to have used cerulean specifically to capture the ‘cold freshness’ of light, a contrast to the warm tones of his sunsets.

Phthalocyanine blue (phthalo blue) was discovered in 1927 and has been on the market since the 1930s. It remains one of the standard pigments to this day. Phthalocyanine pigments are so colour-intensive that tiny amounts are sufficient. This makes them real workhorses in modern painting. Not only do they cover huge areas, they also remain stable for decades. Artists such as Pablo Picasso and David Hockney used it in their paintings.

The Colour Index International, the standard directory for pigments and dyes, currently lists around 170 shades of blue. In the modern artist's palette, however, only about 10–15 pigments play a constant role, mostly variants of cobalt, ultramarine, cerulean and phthalocyanine blue, plus a few special synthetic pigments.
These are used to create different shades through various recipes and mixing ratios. Some manufacturers offer 20–30 different shades of blue alone.

One could say that the old pigments (lapis lazuli, azurite, Egyptian blue, Prussian blue, cobalt blue, synthetic ultramarine, cerulean blue, phthalo blue) form the ‘main line’.

Everything that came after that are branches or variations – new recipes, but no fundamentally new discoveries. The last truly new blue that caused a sensation among experts was YInMn Blue, discovered in 2009 at Oregon State University.

It is the first new inorganic blue in almost 200 years.

It was not until 2020 that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officially approved the pigment for use in artists' paints. It is also approved as a pigment for artists' paints in the EU. The colour tone is clear and very pure, with no green shift. Despite its high opacity, the blue has a brilliant glow. Some artists describe it as a kind of ‘modern cobalt blue’, only slightly richer and even more stable.

The pigment is extremely expensive, significantly more expensive than cobalt blue or synthetic ultramarine. Therefore, production volumes are low.
Some manufacturers such as Gamblin, Kremer Pigments, Daniel Smith and Golden have released small batches.

Incidentally, blue is the most frequently cited favourite colour in almost all global studies. This applies to Europe, the USA, large parts of Asia, Australia and many African countries.
The percentage varies depending on the study, but in most cases between 30% and 45% of respondents answer ‘blue’.

This approach follows exactly the playbook of right-wing populist, authoritarian or autocratic governments. That's how they start! They restrict the rights and freedoms of women and marginalised groups, and censor the press and the arts.

Because whoever controls art and media determines which stories are told: about the past, present and future. Narratives shape identity and collective memory. When criticism disappears, all that remains is the image that those in power create of themselves.

But art can never be completely eradicated. It can be suppressed, censored, exploited or forced underground, but it will never disappear.
Even during the Nazi regime, art continued to exist in secret despite massive attempts at conformity. Artists such as Felix Nussbaum painted in hiding. Despite the danger to his life, he documented his reality without conforming or allowing himself to be silenced. Many of his works depict fear, persecution, isolation and the impending end.

In Eastern Europe (from the Soviet Union to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the GDR), official art after the war was primarily propaganda, but an unofficial scene flourished in parallel. In samizdat culture, political writings, essays critical of the regime, banned literature (e.g. Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, Mandelstam's poems, Solzhenitsyn's works), but also Western literature, philosophy, religious texts and even song lyrics were secretly reproduced and passed on under the table.

Under military dictatorships in Latin America (Chile, Argentina), resistance art emerged, ranging from songs such as ‘El pueblo unido’ to murals painted at night. Many of these works became symbols of resistance and have survived to this day.
Even in North Korea, where state control is extreme, there are cracks. In private, caricatures and poems are created that are never allowed to be shown publicly. Refugees report secret satire, songs sung in secret, diaries documenting life in the shadows. Some who managed to escape, such as the painter Song Byeok, now process their experiences in open, critical art.

There is and never has been a regime so powerful that it could completely eradicate art. Even when paintings and book were burned, artists murdered and voices silenced, art remained.

Not all crises are political. Even during plague epidemics, famines and natural disasters, people painted, wrote and sang. Often because there was simply no other outlet. Art is – among other things – expression. And expression always finds a way.

Interaction

Art does not arise in a vacuum. It responds to social, political, religious and cultural developments. The end of the Byzantine Empire, for example, was not only a turning point between the Middle Ages and the early modern period.

After the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, many scholars fled to Italy, bringing ancient writings with them. Their arrival sparked a new enthusiasm for ancient knowledge. This had been forgotten in Europe for centuries, fragmented and, when available, mostly subordinated to theological purposes. Renaissance humanism brought this knowledge back to the centre of thought and linked it to a new, optimistic view of humanity.

The changed view of humans as self-determined individuals also gave artists a new role. Painters and sculptors were no longer mere craftsmen working on commissions, but intellectuals engaged in philosophy and science. They put their experiences and thoughts into their work and commented on their times.
And so it has been ever since.

But art is not only a mirror, it is also a tool that shapes our times.
It is a multiplier of thoughts. Art captures ideas in images, often making them understandable in the first place. Art puts its finger on the wound, is memorable and emotionally accessible. It has the potential to reveal what is meant to be concealed. Powerful systems know full well that paintings, literature, or theatre can be more dangerous than speeches or numbers because they appeal to emotions and thus unite resistance. This also makes art a target.

When a society enters a crisis, whether due to war, epidemic, dictatorship or climate catastrophe, the position of art in that society also changes. Art becomes more immediate, speaking more strongly of fear, grief, resistance or hope.

When resources are lacking, when materials are scarce or prohibited, new forms of expression emerge. Reduced means, improvised forms, coded messages. Crises put artists in situations where they have to become creative in order to be able to say anything at all. Styles and entire art movements can change radically as a result.

People need expression and communication to process their experiences. Art is an outlet, not only, but especially when experiences are marked by threat, uncertainty, or loss. And this in turn means that art becomes particularly powerful in times of crisis. If it is not captured and instrumentalised, it can offer comfort, but also condemnation. It can give hope or denounce injustices.

This does not mean that art automatically becomes heavier and more serious in times of crisis. There is also art that is deliberately light, playful, or humorous, precisely because the world is so bleak. Humour, irony, and lightness take the edge off fear by ridiculing it and creating a counterworld to the crisis.

Historical Crises: Art in the Face of War and Trauma

15th–16th Century

Let's stay with the Renaissance for a moment. With central perspective, anatomical studies and a new view of humanity, art became more realistic and immediate. Faces gained individuality and expression, bodies had volume and presence. Because art had become so realistic and impressive, it shaped ideas: what does a human being look like, what does God look like? What is beautiful?

But the patrons remained primarily the Church, princes and wealthy merchants. And so the themes also remained religious or representative. The depictions aimed at beauty, harmony and idealisation. This is precisely what created a discrepancy.
While magnificent Madonnas, immaculate saints or elegant patron families appeared in the paintings, the majority of the population lived in poverty, insecurity and, time and again, in the shadow of plague, hunger or war. Art shows how the powerful and the Church wanted to see themselves, thereby revealing how great the gap between this and the reality of the people was.

The noticeable gap between pomp and reality awakened both an awareness of social contrasts and a longing for change.
Human beings are no longer merely sinful creatures awaiting salvation, but curious, self-determined beings who are allowed to explore the world. ‘Sapere aude – have the courage to use your own understanding’ (Kant's formulation in his famous essay ‘What is Enlightenment?’, written in the 18th century but rooted in humanism, which is still worth reading today) describes this attitude.

And so the Renaissance, the rebirth, was characterised by a spirit of optimism and new beginnings. In 1498, Vasco da Gama reached India by sea. During the 16th century, the Portuguese established trading posts in Africa, India, Southeast Asia and Brazil.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus reached America. Spain soon controlled large parts of South and Central America. England and France also began voyages to the ‘New World’ in the early 16th century (e.g. John Cabot in 1497, Jacques Cartier in 1534), to name but a few.

It is not without reason that we refer to this as the Age of Discovery. This marked the beginning of colonisation, with all its catastrophic consequences for indigenous populations. Europe and the world underwent lasting change. Access to precious metals, spices, new plants (potatoes, corn, tomatoes, tobacco) and animals transformed structures of wealth and power.

People no longer accepted their circumstances as God-given; they began to question them. Humanists studied the Bible in its original languages (Greek and Hebrew), not just in the Latin Vulgate version. This return ad fontes (to the sources) revealed inconsistencies and called the Church's interpretation into question.

In 1517, Luther published his 95 theses against the sale of indulgences. This marked the start of the Reformation. Thanks to the printing press, the theses spread throughout Germany within a few weeks and, shortly afterwards, throughout Europe.

The schism in the Church was not only a matter of faith, but also a political one. Princes, cities and entire countries had to decide whether to remain Catholic or accept the new doctrine. This broke a centuries-old consensus and created a patchwork of alliances and enmities.

Europe sank into a century of religious wars. Of course, art alone was not the trigger for this, but it did contribute to it. For better and for worse.

17th Century

The Church took advantage of this in the 17th century. At the Council of Trent (1545–1563), it decided to use art as a means of strengthening faith and obedience. This marked the beginning of the Baroque art period and the emergence of overwhelming, dramatic imagery designed to strike an emotional chord with the faithful. Paintings became more monumental, full of movement and contrasts.

The Thirty Years' War raged and devastated large parts of Europe. The experience of death and destruction is reflected in art through an abundance of vanitas depictions. Skulls, extinguished candles, wilting flowers, precious objects alongside symbols of decay.

In a time of existential uncertainty, the Church used art as propaganda to regain its power. While the symbols of vanitas omnipresently depicted both death and the emptiness of all earthly things, religious splendour painted the past as beautiful and peaceful as it never was. ‘Your turning away from God is to blame for the world sinking into chaos. Come back into the bosom of the Church, be humble and stay in your place, and everything will be fine again.’

Even today, this is still a popular stylistic device of authoritarians (‘great again’). Progress is bad, and as long as the rich get richer and the powerful get more powerful, you don't have to be better off: it's enough if others are worse off.
And when nothing else helps, God will surely help. Just believe in it firmly.

The current TikTok trend ‘Jesus glow’ works in a similar way. Faith is staged as a lifestyle transformation, made visible and shareable, emotionally effective, instantly consumable. This works because these strategies target human psychology – sensory overload, narrative coherence, iconography, and rituals create belonging and trust. In times of crisis (uncertainty, identity issues), people are particularly receptive to powerful images and simple narratives.

The Baroque period is a textbook example of how power uses images, space and ritual in a targeted way to direct emotions and shape the masses.
For a while, this was quite successful. But ultimately, the Counter-Reformation was unable to stop progress. Backward-looking movements never can. They only cause a great deal of damage along the way.

After more than a hundred years of religious and religiously framed wars (from the Peasants' Wars to the Huguenot Wars to the Thirty Years' War), Europe was bled dry. The experience that religion constantly brought war led to scepticism towards dogma and calls for tolerance.

The discoveries of Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton, for example, showed that the world cannot be explained by ecclesiastical authority, but by natural laws that can be explored. This encouraged people to apply reason to other areas as well, such as politics, society, and morality.

18th Century

The 18th century was marked by the Enlightenment, which focused on reason, science and progress (once again Kant: ‘Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.’). This did not protect it from crises and upheavals. In France, in America, and later throughout Europe, questions of freedom, civil rights and equality were raised.

After the end of the Thirty Years' War, mistrust of religious repression ran deep. In the 18th century, trade flourished, prosperity grew in many regions, and a middle class gained influence. This class wanted more rights, not only economically but also politically and culturally, and questioned ecclesiastical and feudal structures.

However, the new wealth was concentrated in the hands of a few. In rural areas, the majority of the population continued to live as dependent farmers. Agriculture was dependent on the weather and had undergone little modernisation. Crop failures quickly led to food shortages. Bread was the staple food – when the price of bread rose, it simply meant hunger for the masses.

Many countries had once again been embroiled in decades of war during this century (the War of the Spanish Succession, the Seven Years' War, etc.). France was particularly heavily indebted. Nevertheless, the nobility and the church clung to their old privileges. They remained largely exempt from taxes, while peasants, citizens, and merchants footed the bill.
In England and the colonies, too, trade restrictions and taxes led to anger against the Crown.
Economic hardship greatly increased the willingness to embrace radical change.

The ideas of philosophers such as Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Montesquieu had enormous explosive power because they offered an alternative to the existing system. Suddenly, it was conceivable that ‘we could live differently’. The second half of the 18th century saw several revolutions. The American Revolution (1775–1783) was the first, followed later by the French Revolution (from 1789) and the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804), the first successful slave revolution.
In addition, there were movements in the Netherlands (Patriot Movement, 1780s) and attempts at reform in other countries, but these often failed or were suppressed.

At the beginning of the 18th century, art turned away from the moralising themes of the Baroque, but still made use of its opulence. Rococo was frivolous, playful, light, decorative and full of pastel colours. It was all about pleasure, eroticism and the gallant life (e.g. François Boucher, Jean-Honoré Fragonard).

In the second half of the 18th century, however, art responded with clarity to reason and with pathos to the revolution. Classicism became the visual language for a new political and moral aspiration, a conscious departure from Baroque splendour and ecclesiastical representation. Instead, it often served explicitly to mobilise political support. Jacques-Louis David, for example, made his works symbols of republican virtue, martyrdom and civic oaths. Art thus became part of the language of the revolution.

19th Century

The Enlightenment changed the way people thought. People no longer relied solely on traditional authorities; they sought verifiable knowledge. This gave the natural sciences a tremendous boost and paved the way for technical innovations in fields such as mechanics, chemistry and physics. Inventions such as James Watt's improved steam engine would have been inconceivable without this new understanding.

Political upheavals, above all the revolutions, had weakened the old feudal structures and made way for a society that was interested in progress and had sufficient resources to invest in new technologies. Thus, new ways of thinking, scientific discoveries, economic interests and social changes flowed into one another and led to the Industrial Revolution becoming possible in the 19th century.

And yet, the 19th century was almost entirely marked by crises, upheavals and contradictions. Politically and socially, it began with the Napoleonic Wars, which shook the whole of Europe. This was followed by the revolutions of 1830 and 1848, the great famine in Ireland, colonial expansion, national movements and, at the end of the century, the social conflicts of industrialisation.
Almost every generation experienced a new crisis.

Artistically, the century was almost as diverse as its crises. Each movement responded to the times in its own way.
Romanticism (c. 1800–1850) emerged during the Napoleonic Wars. It sought emotion, the sublime, nature as a counterworld to war, industrialisation, and rationality. Caspar David Friedrich depicts lonely figures in endless landscapes, while Goya looks into the abyss of human cruelty. His ‘Black Paintings’ and the series of etchings The Horrors of War show what remains of the ideal of reason when violence and power take over. Romanticism was both escapism and a way of processing trauma.

Realism (from around 1850) was a reaction to industrialisation and social inequality. Artists such as Gustave Courbet did not paint heroes. Or at least they painted different heroes: workers, farmers, the hard life. Invisible worlds were thus made visible.

In the 19th century, Paris was the centre of the art world. And Paris was changing, with modern city life emerging. Artists such as Monet and Renoir depicted transience, light, and movement. Impressionism (from 1870) was less about crisis and more about rapid change and new perceptions. But even here, there was criticism of the times. Artists no longer painted ‘eternal truths’, but rather the moment.

Symbolism and Fin de Siècle (late 19th century) were a kind of counter-movement to sober modernism. Artists immersed themselves in dream worlds and myths. They were primarily concerned with inner crises. Much of it seemed melancholic, almost decadent. A reflection of uncertainty and the search for identity in an accelerated world.

20th Century

The First World War (1914–1918) is considered the first industrialised mass war in history.

For the first time, war was no longer fought primarily with horses, rifles and cannons, but with the full force of an industrialised society. Factories produced weapons, ammunition, tanks, aeroplanes and poison gas around the clock. As a result, the front was no longer just a place of military conflict, but a gigantic technical apparatus.

Logistics were also industrialised: railways transported troops and supplies on an unprecedented scale, and means of communication such as telegraph and radio made war more predictable – and at the same time more dehumanised. Millions of soldiers became part of a system of machines, steel and trenches.

After the First World War, nothing was the same anymore. Millions of people were dead, entire regions were devastated, states collapsed – and all in the name of progress and reason. People realised that if this ‘civilised’ world was capable of such a war, then something fundamental was wrong.

The idea that technology and reason automatically lead to a better world was shattered. Art and literature reacted radically to this after 1918: Dada, Expressionism, New Objectivity – they all attempted to process this experience of loss of meaning and destruction.

Dada was a direct response to this shock. Artists wanted nothing more to do with the logic that had made war possible. When reason leads to mass murder, all that remains is absurdity.
In Zurich, Berlin and New York, artists such as Hugo Ball, Tristan Tzara and Hannah Höch created collages, sound poems and absurd performances. Dada deliberately destroyed language, form and meaning in protest against a world that had lost its meaning. It was not an escape, but a form of refusal: if everything is absurd, then we will openly show the absurdity.

Expressionism emerged before the war, but the experience of war radicalised it. Expressionist artists wanted to show what was inside, pain, fear, turmoil. Not external reality.
Artists such as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Franz Marc and Egon Schiele distorted forms, exaggerated colours and broke with perspective. After 1918, Expressionism became a cry against the old order. The shock was particularly felt in Germany, where artists such as Otto Dix and George Grosz captured the disfigurement and brutalisation of war in unsparing images.

After all the chaos, a counter-movement emerged: New Objectivity. Artists wanted to return to a ‘sober’ and ‘realistic’ depiction of reality – but without idealisation.
Otto Dix, who had served in the war, painted soldiers, cripples, prostitutes and war invalids in the 1920s. No heroism, no hope, just the naked post-war misery. George Grosz caricatured the double standards of a society in which war profiteers and corrupt politicians flourished while others starved.

After the First World War, there was no real peace in Europe, but rather a period of instability and violence. Peace treaties followed (Versailles, 1919, etc.), but they created new tensions instead of lasting peace.
The economic crises of the 1920s and 1930s, the rise of authoritarian and fascist regimes in Germany, Italy, Spain and other countries, and the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) were all harbingers of the next great war.

With Guernica (cover image), which was shown at the Paris World Exhibition in May 1937, Picasso responded to the bombing of the Basque city of Guernica by the German ‘Legion Condor’ during the Spanish Civil War.
The painting condenses the horrors of modern warfare into an iconic anti-war panorama.

During the Nazi era, art was systematically turned into propaganda. Anything that did not fit into the image of the ‘German national community’ was defamed, banned or destroyed. Art was no longer to be free, but to serve ideology, myth, and the staging of power.

The modern avant-garde movements that flourished during the Weimar Republic were replaced by a style that appeared to be based on ancient and classical ideals. Heroic bodies, rural idylls, depictions of mothers and children, ‘healthy’ landscapes. Men were portrayed as athletic warriors, women as fertile mothers. Symbols of strength, purity, self-sacrifice.

At the same time, works by modern artists such as Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc and Emil Nolde were branded as ‘degenerate’. Many of them were removed from museums, confiscated, destroyed or sold abroad. The 1937 exhibition ‘Degenerate Art’ in Munich was the culmination of this campaign. Millions of people flocked to the exhibition to express their outrage at ‘depraved’ modernism. It was a public display of censorship.

Many artists went into exile in Switzerland, France, the USA or South America. Others fell silent or were forced to adapt. Some, such as Käthe Kollwitz, remained, continued to work quietly and recorded the suffering of the population without currying favour with the regime.

After the end of the Second World War, art – like the world – lay in ruins. And the question arose: how can art still be created after Auschwitz, after Hiroshima, after everything that has happened?

Many artists felt that language and traditional forms of expression had been exhausted. What had been revealed in the world wars – the unleashing of technology, dehumanisation, the silence of so many – made it impossible to trust in old values. Art thus became a testing ground for new forms of expression.

In the USA, Abstract Expressionism developed with artists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman. They believed that only a completely new, non-representational language could do justice to the experience of the 20th century. Pollock's gestural painting, the rhythmic dripping, flinging and pouring of paint, was no longer representation, but action: a physical, almost existential act. Art became a kind of trace of human existence itself.

In Europe, especially in Germany, dealing with the past was much more difficult. After National Socialism, it was not just a question of making a new start, but also of guilt, memory and responsibility. Artists such as Joseph Beuys attempted to create something out of this wound that could enable healing or transformation, using materials such as fat, felt or wax, which symbolise warmth, protection, but also vulnerability. In his actions, Beuys understood art as a social process, as an attempt to change consciousness.

A generation later, Anselm Kiefer took up this debate again. His large-format, heavy paintings, featuring earth, straw, ash and lead, are reminiscent of burnt landscapes, ruins and myths. They raise the question of how memory can be materialised. In his work, German history is literally inscribed on the surface.

At the same time, art emerged that was linked to the political movements of the post-war period. In the 1960s and 1970s, art became political and physical: the civil rights movement in the USA, feminism, the anti-war and environmental movements found expression in performance, photography, text and conceptual art. Artists such as Judy Chicago and Martha Rosler used art as a means of visibility, as a language for those who had previously been overlooked or oppressed.

Artistic remembrance took the form of memorials, installations and later photographic works that attempted to capture the unspeakable – the Holocaust, displacement, loss – without aestheticising it. Artists such as Christian Boltanski, Gerhard Richter and many followers of Käthe Kollwitz sought to make silence, absence and gaps visible.

The Present – Identity, Climate Crisis and Global Issues

After the end of the Cold War, i.e. from the 1990s onwards, the major political fronts shifted. The world was suddenly open. Borders fell, communication became global, and the internet created a new public sphere. Art responded to this by focusing less on form or style and more on position, perspective and context.

The focus of many artists shifted to questions of identity, belonging, gender roles and perspective. Who is allowed to tell stories? Whose stories are shown? And what happens when you reverse the perspective?

Art became a medium for feminist and queer self-assertion. Works by Cindy Sherman, Zanele Muholi, Tracey Emin and Mona Hatoum, for example, explore identity through the body, vulnerability and self-presentation.
Postcolonial voices became more visible, for example in the work of Yinka Shonibare, El Anatsui, Kara Walker and Shirin Neshat, who deal with power relations, migration and cultural memory. And with the advent of social media, the self became increasingly virtual. Artists such as Amalia Ulman and Hito Steyerl began to address precisely this blurring of the real and digital self.

Since around 2010, art has once again become more socially and ecologically political. The climate crisis has become a global symbol of a new sense of vulnerability. Many artists are addressing the question of how much intervention the earth can withstand.
In doing so, they are not simply showing the destruction of nature, but the relationship between humans and the planet. It is about traces, materiality, and responsibility.

After the financial crisis of 2008, social inequality became one of the most discussed topics in the art world. Artists show precarious living conditions, exploitation, and economic power relations. At the same time, they reflect on the fact that the art world itself is part of this inequality. Who can afford art? Who is shown, who is overlooked?

Artists address migration, flight, and uprooting in their works. Not as a political issue, but as an existential one. What does home mean when it is not safe? How can one talk about loss without exploiting it?

Today, art is also an arena for social tensions – populism, nationalism, and extremism. The digital public sphere has radically changed the relationship between truth and image.
Artists are responding to the loss of shared realities, to fake news, social media filter bubbles and the manipulative use of images.
Contemporary art is attempting to create new forms of testimony, solidarity, and memory.

Contemporary art is decentralised, global, networked, but at the same time deeply personal. Despite the many voices of today's crises, at its core it is about the loss of trust and belonging. And so the exploration of identity remains crucial in art – now as part of these crises.
It asks: How is identity changing in a world that is simultaneously networked and divided?

Bestimmt geht es dir auch so und du willst etwas Persönliches verschenken – vielleicht sogar Kunst? Eine schöne Idee.
Ich weiß aber auch, dass der Kauf von Kunst, für sich selbst und erst recht als Geschenk, mit Unsicherheiten verbunden ist. Als Künstlerin werden mir einige Fragen immer wieder gestellt. Heute beantworte ich sie.

A Plea for Art as a Gift

Art is personal; it touches us and tells stories. A work of art accompanies us, changes with us and often takes on new meaning over time. It can carry memories and transport us back to the mood we were in when we first saw it.

Art is not about decorative value. That is just an accessory. Engaging with art makes us happy. This has actually been scientifically proven. Looking at art releases the same hormones in us as seeing a loved one. Scientists say that looking at art, really looking at it, feels like a hug. As an artist, I can confirm this.

And what could be nicer to give than a hug?
I am convinced that art is the perfect gift. For everyone – except perhaps self-proclaimed art haters.

Now, it may be obvious that I think this way as an artist and art lover. But I'm not trying to sell you anything here. (But feel free if you like something. I really appreciate any support :))
Let's be honest, we all like to surround ourselves with beautiful things. The term ‘art’ always carries such weight and fuels uncertainty – and distance.

I find that incredibly unfortunate. Because it's the opposite of what art can do.

5 Questions I am Frequently Asked

To address this, I will answer the five most frequently asked questions I receive when it comes to purchasing the “right” artwork.

1. How do I find a piece of art that really suits someone?

Behind this question usually lies the fear of buying something ‘wrong’, i.e. disappointing someone, wasting money or embarrassing oneself. We believe we have to understand art in order to choose it.

However, there is no such thing as the objectively ‘right’ work of art, just as there is no such thing as the wrong one. A work of art is right if it triggers something in you. It conveys a feeling of calm, curiosity, joy, melancholy or security.

Art does not work through arguments, but through resonance. If a detail, a colour or a mood stays with you, then it is right. Trust your intuition. This works when you buy art for yourself and also when you want to give it as a gift.

Don't try to guess the other person's taste. Instead, think of moments, memories or characteristics that you associate with that person. If a work reminds you of these, there's a good chance that it will also appeal to the recipient. Make this memory part of your gift. Write a letter, a card or talk about it when you give the gift.

‘This landscape feels like the place where we grew up,’ ‘Do you remember last summer when we sat on the terrace and talked and talked as the sun went down and the sky changed colours? I thought of that when I saw this painting,’ or ‘The colours in this painting are as cheerful as you are, I just had to buy it.’
Or simply: ‘I saw this artwork and thought of you.’ This makes the gift something very special.

2. Does a Work of Art have to Match the Colour Scheme or Style of the Recipient's Home?

No, it doesn't have to. You're not giving away a piece of furniture or decoration. You're giving away art. And art is allowed to cause friction, to challenge or surprise.
Stylistic differences are not a problem. A contrast can even be more exciting than a perfectly coordinated arrangement.

I think small works of art are particularly suitable as gifts. They are more flexible and give the recipient more freedom to decide where to hang or place them. Small works of art can also be combined well with each other, which can change their effect.

3. How can I Tell if a Work of Art is ‘Good’?

Behind this question, too, there is usually the uncertainty of ‘I don't know my way around this.’
No one wants to be ripped off. That's understandable. But this question is less about whether the canvas is warped, the wood is bent or similar material defects.

Unconsciously, at least sometimes, it's about the question: am I buying art or hobby painting? And to be clear, there's nothing wrong with hobby painting.
It's usually about the process of painting, experimenting with the material, the pure joy of it. And that's wonderful.

Art arises from an inner need to express, explore or visualise something. Artists develop their work over years, question it, accept setbacks and work on their own language. In their works, they process personal and universal experiences.

Is one better than the other? You don't need an expert to tell you that. You are the measure of all things. What speaks to you is good. What feels authentic to you is good.
If you want to buy art for investment purposes, there may be other criteria. But that's not what we're talking about here.

4. Why do Works of Art Vary so Much in Price?

From the outside, it may seem arbitrary how an art price is determined. Especially since works of art of the same size can range in price from 100 euros to tens of thousands of euros.
But the art price is not purely the sum of materials + time, but rather an interplay of artistic value, market mechanisms and social perception.

The decisive factors for the art price are:

• Size and Material

  It sounds trivial, but it is relevant in practical terms: large works require more materials, more time, more storage space and often higher shipping costs – all of which are factored into the price.
  High-quality materials (pigments, canvases, frames, metal, wood, etc.) also increase the price.

• Uniqueness and Originality

  An original costs significantly more than a print or an edition.
  Even among originals, it matters whether it is a unique piece or part of a series, how complex the creation process was, and whether special techniques were used.

• The Artist's Reputation and Market Position

  That is the biggest factor. A work by someone who exhibits internationally or is represented by major galleries has a completely different market value than that of an emerging artist – even if both work at a similar technical level.

• Demand and Collector's Value

  When artists become established and collectors buy regularly, prices automatically rise due to the forces of supply and demand.

• Galleries and Commissions

  When a work is sold through a gallery, the gallery usually receives 40–50% of the sale price.
  This means that the price of a work of art must be calculated in such a way that, after this commission has been deducted, the artist is still left with a fair wage. This increases the final price accordingly.

5. What if the Budget is Limited?

You don't need a big budget to buy art. My best tip is to buy directly from artists. That way, you're supporting us directly, and we can really use that! Plus, the price isn't inflated by gallery or platform commissions.

Don't get me wrong. Galleries and art platforms have their place. They act as intermediaries between artists and buyers. They facilitate access for both sides, and it's fair that they get paid for that.
But if your budget is limited, you can also search for art yourself and save money in the process.

What's more, small formats are often more affordable. But they can have the same expressive value as large works. Size doesn't say anything about significance. And as already explained, small formats are particularly well suited as gifts.

Editions or prints are not ‘second choice’. Many artists offer high-quality fine art prints, sometimes in small editions. This has nothing to do with posters. These prints are so precise and the paper so high-quality that you might think you are looking at an original painting.
They are cheaper, but no less valuable artistically. And a numbered small edition can certainly have its own value.

A Fair Idea: Buy Art, Support Artists

Speaking of affordable art, if you want to give art as a gift or buy it for yourself without spending a fortune, it's worth taking a look at the Artist Support Pledge.

This is now a global initiative founded in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic by British artist Matthew Burrows. When exhibitions, fairs and galleries suddenly closed, artists lost their most important sources of income. Burrows wanted to create a way for artists to support each other in a straightforward, solidarity-based manner without intermediaries.

The idea behind it is simple: those who sell art give part of the proceeds back into the cycle by buying art from others themselves.
This creates a kind of solidarity-based economic cycle within the art world – a system based on trust and community, not competition.

How does the Artist Support Pledge work in practice?

• Artists post their works on social media (mostly on Instagram) with the hashtag #artistsupportpledge.
• Each work may cost a maximum of €220 ($220 / £220 / A$330 / C$330 / ¥22,000). This keeps art affordable and accessible.
• Once someone has sold art worth a total of €1,100 (£1,100, A$1,650, C$1,650, ¥110,000), they commit to purchasing a work from another artist participating in the pledge.
• The system is based on honesty. There is no control, no central platform, just a shared understanding that if you profit, you give something back.

Especially in uncertain times, the pledge helps to secure short-term income. Artists not only support each other instead of competing for limited resources, they also create access for people with smaller budgets. This gives them the opportunity to acquire real art.

So if you're still looking for a very special Christmas gift, search for a work of art that moves you under the hashtag #artistsupportpledge.

I took part last year too. I actually managed to tick off quite a few items. I've caught up on some of the ones that were left open this year, while others remain on the list – but that doesn't mean I'm losing sight of them.
And because it really spurred me on, I'm taking part again this year.

My To-Want List for 2025

However, this year has been really strange for me. It's been like wading through waist-high water against the current. Nothing that knocked me over, but it definitely slowed me down. And then a few weeks ago, it finally caught up with me.
My overarching ‘goal’ for the rest of the year is therefore to find myself again. In some ways, it's more about starting than finishing. So please be forgiving if not all the points can be ticked off at the end.

These are my wishes for the rest of the year:

1. Seeing the colours on a walk, even when the day is grey.
2. Spending a whole day in my pyjamas, with tea and a book.
3. Try out the new paper I bought in September.
4. Redesign my studio. Last year, I had planned to renovate it. I haven't got around to it yet, and I won't be able to do it by the end of the year. That remains on my list for next year. But I can make a few changes so that I feel more comfortable again.
5. Be amazed again: by colour, light, a detail…
6. Spend a weekend completely offline.
7. See an original Max Liebermann again, for example, at the Frieda Burda Museum in Baden-Baden.
8. Start putting the ideas that are floating around in my head for two new art series down on paper.
9. Do something for the first time. Maybe something that requires me to muster up some courage or step out of my comfort zone. Maybe something I haven't had the opportunity to do before.
10. Spend an evening listening to music that moves me.
11. Leaf through old sketches.
12. Write a letter to myself.
13. Sit in a street café and watch the people passing by.
14. Take a different route for a change. Maybe just two streets further, but with an open mind.
15. Watch the sky until the colour changes.
16. Put on something nice, even if no one can see me.
17. Snuggle up with Stefan under blankets and watch an old film.
18. Resume our Sunday ritual. Browse through the book What Great Paintings Say* over breakfast and learn more about one of the works in it. We've lost a little time for this in our everyday lives. We're getting it back.
19. Try out a new colour or an unusual material.
20. Stroll through the Christmas market in Münster.
21. Watching the light as it falls through the curtains in the morning.
22. Allowing silence. Just now and then. No music, no podcasts, no noise.
23. Observing myself kindly. Not judging myself when things don't go well or I fall back into old patterns.
24. Spending time with people who are good for me.
25. Saying thank you to the people who support me and carry me when I can't do it myself.

*Affiliate link. If you order something through this link, you will be supporting my work at no extra cost to you. Thank you!

So, there it is, my list.
It's more of a little reminder to myself to be good to myself and gather strength. Just writing it down feels like a first step back to myself.
And you – what do you want to do for yourself this year?

Vincent van Gogh was incredibly productive. Although he only lived to be 37 and did not start painting until he was 27, he left behind almost 900 paintings and over 1,000 drawings. So it's no wonder that he must be one of the most stolen artists in percentage terms. But his works are also among the most valuable in the world, and everyone immediately recognises his name. This makes his paintings attractive to thieves, even though they are practically unsellable.

Perhaps it also has something to do with the fact that van Gogh poured his vulnerability into his paintings, and that art thieves unconsciously recognise this and therefore often choose them. Who knows?
In any case, there are repeated break-ins at smaller and larger museums in order to get hold of Van Gogh's masterpieces.

Most recently in March 2020, during the coronavirus lockdown, when Van Gogh's Spring Garden (also known as The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring) was stolen from the Singer Laren Museum in the Netherlands. The painting was found in 2023 in Amsterdam at the home of a former art thief and returned. I'm not telling that story today, but Van Gogh also plays a role in one of my three robbery stories.

Masterpieces in the loo

It is the morning of 27 April 2003. The staff at the Whitworth Art Gallery begin their rounds of the rooms to prepare the museum for the day. The Margaret Pilkington Room is part of the main exhibition. Here, the gallery displays works on paper from its collection, and here the staff come across three empty frames on the wall.

The police are called immediately. Everything indicates that the thieves specifically selected the three works. They are The Fortification of Paris with Houses by Vincent van Gogh, Poverty by Pablo Picasso and Tahitian Landscape by Paul Gauguin. The Whitworth Art Gallery specialises in works on paper and has a large collection of prints, drawings and watercolours (including Turner, Blake and Hockney). But Van Gogh, Picasso and Gauguin are, of course, the biggest ‘drawcards’ in the international ranking.

Although these are neither the artists' greatest masterpieces nor the most expensive works in the gallery's collection, they are undoubtedly among the best known and most popular exhibits. It is therefore hardly surprising that the theft has caused such a stir in the city. Even before further details are known, the first media outlets are already reporting a ‘serious art theft’ and a ‘catastrophe for Manchester’.

The British press speaks of a ‘devastating loss’ and an ‘irreparable blow’ to the Whitworth Art Gallery. Some headlines suggest that the paintings have probably already been smuggled out of the country or are gone forever.

But just a few hours later, the police receive an anonymous tip. They search a public toilet that is out of order in Whitworth Park, right next to the museum. And sure enough, they find a cardboard tube containing all three works – and a note with the message:

The intention was not to steal but to highlight the woeful security.

The relief is immense. However, as all three works are watercolours on paper, storage in the cardboard tube and the damp environment caused slight damage such as watermarks, warped paper and small tears.
The works are taken to the restoration workshops at the Whitworth Art Gallery. After a few months, they are ready to be exhibited again.

The combination of shock and curiosity has made the theft headline news beyond Manchester and into the international press. Newspapers in Europe and the USA reported not only on the theft, but also on the unusual ‘return’ and the embarrassment for the museum's security system. This was then, of course, improved, although understandably no further details are known.

A Masterpiece for a Few Bucks

Harpers Ferry in West Virginia is a small town at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers. The town is historically known for John Brown's slave rebellion (1859) and also played a role in the Civil War. The town and surrounding countryside together form Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.

This historic town with its antique shops is a tourist attraction. The small markets that take place regularly are popular with collectors because you can always find nice pieces there.

In 2009, a woman from the neighbouring state of Virginia visits the Harpers Ferry flea market. She strolls through the market. Here and there, something catches her eye. Among other things, she is interested in a frame. It is nothing special, but pretty and decorative. At the end of the day, she takes home a small box with her purchases. Among them is the frame (including the painting). In total, she spent £7 at the flea market that day.

She keeps the painting for three years. Perhaps it hangs on her wall, perhaps it gathers dust on a shelf. In 2012, she decides to sell it. An old oil painting in a decorative frame is sure to fetch a little money at auction as a nice decorative piece or antique painting by an unknown artist, certainly more than $7.

In the USA, many regional auction houses also accept everyday objects, jewellery or furniture, not just fine art, and so the painting eventually ends up at the Potomac Company in Alexandria. There it is to be auctioned. In the course of the preparations, the experts catalogue and examine the work. And that's when they get a big surprise. The inconspicuous painting in the inconspicuous frame is a genuine Renoir! Estimated value: $75,000–100,000.

However, it will not be sold for this amount. As it turns out, it was stolen from the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1951. The painting Paysage Bords de Seine was bequeathed to the museum in 1937 by the collector Saidie May. She was one of its important patrons.

In 1951, the small Renoir painting disappeared from an exhibition. Whether it disappeared overnight or during opening hours is not clearly documented. The painting is very small (14 × 23 cm, oil on canvas), so it would have been relatively easy to remove it and hide it under a coat or in a bag. But whether that is what happened...?

The case was reported to the police, but never solved. The painting has been considered lost ever since. How it got from the museum to the flea market remains unclear to this day. Neither the perpetrator nor the whereabouts of the painting could ever be traced.

Since the painting was proven to be stolen, it legally still belonged to the Baltimore Museum of Art. The flea market visitor was therefore unable to keep it. Even though she had bought the painting in good faith, she received neither a finder's fee nor compensation. She was not even reimbursed for her £7.

After its return in 2014, the painting was returned to the Baltimore Museum of Art. There it is part of the Saidie May Collection, to which it originally belonged.

The EternalMmystery of The Just Judges

In 1934, a robbery at St. Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent shook not only Belgium but the whole of Europe. Two panels from Jan van Eyck's famous Ghent Altarpiece were stolen. The work is considered a turning point, a monumental masterpiece that heralded the Northern Renaissance.

On the night of 11 April, witnesses saw the shadowy figures of two people placing flat objects in their car. The next morning, during his morning rounds, the sacristan Van Volsem discovered that the door to the Vijd Chapel, where the altar was located, had been broken open. His immediate fears were confirmed.

The two panels, John the Baptist and The Just Judges, had disappeared. Instead, there is a note (in French) on the frame with the message ‘Taken from Germany under the Treaty of Versailles.’

During the First World War, the altar had been confiscated by the Germans and taken to Germany. The Treaty of Versailles of 1919 stipulated that Germany had to return the altar to Belgium. So is there a political connection?

Nothing happens for 19 days. Although the country is in turmoil, the police find neither fingerprints nor other clues despite extensive investigations. But at the end of April, the Bishop of Ghent, Honoré Coppieters, receives a letter. In it, the thief or thieves demand a ransom of one million Belgian francs, threatening to destroy the panels if their demand is not met. The letter is signed D.U.A.

Bishop Coppieters is prepared to pay the ransom. For him, preserving the altar as a sacred object in the cathedral is paramount. However, the Belgian government is strictly opposed to this. It does not want to give money to criminals or encourage copycats.
The blackmail letter also contains instructions for encrypted communication via the Brussels newspaper ‘La Dernière Heure’. In this way, the bishop continues to negotiate with the blackmailers and asks for guarantees.

Can you already sense the Hollywood vibe in this story? And that's not all – and every word is true!
So, after some back and forth and several letters from the thief or thieves and newspaper advertisements from the bishop, the thief or thieves are actually willing to show their good will. With the next letter, they also send the collection slip for the luggage storage at Brussels North station. And there, left by a man with a goatee, is the panel depicting John the Baptist.

A few days later, another letter arrives with instructions and a torn newspaper page. The ransom is to be deposited at the Meulpas rectory, a courier will come to collect it, and the second half of the newspaper page will be his distinguishing mark – real film material, right?

In any case, that's exactly how it happens. A taxi driver arrives, he has the scrap of newspaper and takes the package with the ransom money. So you might think, all's well that ends well. But the police thought that returning the plaque was a sign of weakness. So instead of a million, they put only 25,000 francs in the package.

Unsurprisingly, this does not meet with enthusiasm from the perpetrator(s). Messages are exchanged again, but ultimately remain unsuccessful. On 1 October 1934, the last letter arrives at the Bishop of Ghent. The panel of the just judges remains missing.

Scene change. Six weeks later. Flemish businessman, lay preacher and former bank employee Arsène Goedertier gives a speech at a political party meeting in Dendermonde. Shortly afterwards, he collapses with a heart attack. He is quickly taken to his brother-in-law's nearby house. While someone is sent to fetch the doctor, Goedertier says: ‘I alone know where the altarpiece is. No one else knows.’

His condition worsens. His friend, notary Georges de Vos, is with him. Goedertier whispers his last words in his ear. ‘In my desk… keys… cupboard… health insurance folder…’ Then he dies.
After his death, his office is searched and the folder is found. It contains copies of the 13 blackmail letters sent to the Bishop of Ghent. But there is no trace of the painting The Just Judges.

This story contains more than enough to make this robbery a legend. Generations of treasure hunters have since searched Wetteren, churches, graves, cellars, parks, and even canals for the lost painting. To this day, it has not been found, even though rumours of a hot lead crop up from time to time.
In 1945, the painter Jef Van der Veken created a copy, which can still be seen in the altar today.

Endless art theft?

But even then, the story of the altar is not over. When World War II looms in 1939, the Ghent Altarpiece is first dismantled and taken to various locations in Belgium for safekeeping to protect it from destruction or theft. After the German invasion, the altar falls into the hands of the Nazis. It is on Hitler's ‘special list’ for the planned Führer Museum in Linz.

The Nazis confiscated the altar and took it to Neuschwanstein, later to Austria. From 1943 onwards, the situation in the war changed dramatically. The Allies increasingly bombed German cities and industrial facilities. This increased the risk that stored looted goods could also be destroyed.

The Nazis began to store the most valuable pieces in salt mines. In addition to the Ghent Altarpiece, Michelangelo's Bruges Madonna and paintings by Vermeer, Rembrandt and Rubens were also stored in Altaussee.
In May 1945, Allied art protection officers (‘Monuments Men’) discovered the holdings in Altaussee, more than 4,700 works of art!

So art theft sometimes really does resemble a heist film. Sometimes even more chaotic, absurd and mysterious than in Hollywood.