Barlach studied art in Hamburg, Germany, and later in Dresden and Paris. Influenced early in his career by Jugendstil, Germany’s Art Nouveau style, he vacillated between pursuing sculpture and the decorative arts. In 1906 he traveled to Russia, where the strong bodies and expressive faces of the peasants stimulated his commitment to sculpture and to the development of his mature style, which characteristically features bulky, monumental figures in heavy drapery. In works such as The Solitary One (1911), details of the figure are eliminated and the massive forms seem ready to explode with bound energy. Barlach achieved a rough-hewn quality by preferring wood, the material used in late Gothic sculpture. Even when he worked with other, more-contemporary materials, as in his bronze Death (1925), he often emulated the raw quality of wood sculpture to achieve a more brutal effect.
Starting about 1910, Barlach began to pursue a career as a dramatist. His most notable dramas, Der tote Tag (1912; “The Dead Day”) and Der Findling (1922; “The Foundling”), combine symbolism and realism to present the tragic futility of existence. He often created woodcuts and lithographs to accompany his written works.
