Siegfried's Difficult Way to Brünnhilde

Anselm Kiefer German

Not on view

The title of this work refers to the hero of Wagner’s Ring cycle, Siegfried, and his journey to the place where his lover, Brünnhilde, sleeps inside a ring of fire. It is also the title of a 1977 book of photographs Kiefer made on the subject of an abandoned railway bed, a motif that suggests a sense of loss, of forgotten time. "Our historical knowledge . . . determines our way of looking at things," Kiefer once said. "We see railway tracks anywhere and think about Auschwitz. It will remain that way in the long run."

Siegfried's Difficult Way to Brünnhilde, Anselm Kiefer (German, born Donaueschingen, 1945), Acrylic and gouache on photograph

Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.

Open Access

As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes.

API

Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API.