Dark Times

Details

Description

Dark times call for principled action or soul-destroying passive surrender to events beyond one’s control. On offer is a work … Read more Dark times call for principled action or soul-destroying passive surrender to events beyond one’s control. On offer is a work by an anonymous artist of European urban landscape art that captures the specific "Berlin backyard" aesthetic of the 1920s.
While on the face of it emotionally flat, the piece uses a somber, muted color palette to distinctly convey a sense of industrial gloom and the angering "dark times" experienced by a city's poorer working-class inhabitants.
People live here, packed in. They can’t sleep at night, defeated by worry, hopelessness and noise. The foreground features barrels and crates in a courtyard, highlighting the industrial and labor-focused environment of the era. It was a time of class struggles that led to an embrace of socialism (except for the comfortable rich), but simultaneously the growth of political power on the far right. As a sharp depiction of truth, it was a warning.
Signature: Lower left (photo #7). NOTICE: This work is no longer attributed to Hans Baluschek. See less