BERLIN.- The Skulpturensammlung (sculpture collection), housed at the Bode Museum together with the Museum für Byzantinische Kunst, is not only a highly important part within the family of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, it is also the only systematic and encyclopedic collection of sculptural works in Germany. It brings together under one roof sculptures and objects of various materials, from the tiniest formats to works of monumental proportions. The collection covers a timespan ranging from late antiquity to neo-classicism. This collection of sculptures is all but unrivaled among museums worldwide.

We are very pleased that Markus Lüpertz counts the Bode Museum not only among his favorite museums, but that moreover, he felt inspired – or should we rather say: challenged? – by a work in its collection, Ludwig Münstermann’s Apollo.

Due to a major exhibition in 2014, Münstermann's oak sculpture was not on show in the permanent display. Markus Lüpertz took advantage of this situation and created numerous drawings of the work from up-close. A selection of these can now be seen in direct context with Ludwig Münstermann's Apollo.

The significantly lower than life-size figure was initially meant to be part of an organ case – hence the iconography: here, Apollo is the personification of music. The ancient pagan deities had been assimilated into Christianity during the Renaissance by means of radical allegorization, thus were able to eventually find in their home even in sacred spaces, in the present case at the castle church in Varel.

At the museum, Münstermann’s figure is indeed deprived of its original context, but this ultimately places it in a position of having a more direct impact upon the viewer than was probably the case originally in the artistic agglomeration of the Varel organ case. In fact, a tremendous kind of magic emanates from this early 17th century work. Münstermann approached his subject by showing the ancient patron god of the arts as a heroic seminude – in keeping with various examples from antiquity. Yet, in contrast to Italian or French art of the era, which is influenced in turn by classical principles, Münstermann, in shaping his figure, did not strictly follow antiquity’s canon of harmonious proportions: his leader of the muses presents himself to us not in classical contrapposto with clearly defined supporting and non-supporting leg – he seems to float rather than stand. The proportions of the torso, the limbs and the apparently oversized head are clearly contradictory to classical conceptions, and in their originality clearly exceeded any examples from the field of Netherlandish art that were accessible to Münstermann, and that might have had a formative influence – on these and other aspects, I recommend Dietmar Jürgen Ponert’s short yet equally substantial contribution on Münstermann in the Neuen Deutsche Biographie (NDB 18, 1997, p. 545 f).

There is yet another aspect that further removes the figure from its original context: we have to imagine it elaborately decorated in a costly manner, with intense colors, using gold and silver, as preserved in some of Münstermann’s other works. Due to the loss of this aspect, the figure seems more primitive, almost archaic, than it may have originally appeared. Then again, the exposed wood now emphasizes the sculpture’s manifestly expressive character, which gladly combines with precious virtuosity in those works by Münstermann that have indeed been preserved in their original state. What is more, the present appearance of the figure readily exposes the traces of the wood carving knife, the actual work carried out by the sculptor. During the 20th century, as we now know, medieval and early modern sculptures were often heedlessly and indiscriminately stripped of their colorful decor, since it was considered a downright corruption that allegedly obstructed a clear view of the essential sculpture. Modern notions of the appropriate use of materials and supposedly “real” artistic craftsmanship gave rise to this and had to suffice as justification.

It might therefore be considered a creative misunderstanding that a contemporary artist is fascinated by precisely this work by Münstermann, which, since it can be found in a public museum, was and still is more easily accessible than those works by the artist still in situ. Yet: clearly prohibited among art historians because of their commitment to see right through the palimpsest to its original condition, it is not only permitted to artists, they might even feel invited to do this. They may see previous works of art not with the eyes of a scholar, but rather with those of a painter and sculptor working in the here and now.

This is how Markus Lüpertz approached our figure, and how he adapted it. He saw something that corresponded to his own notion of sculpture, in a way that I shall not describe any further at this point. It is all the more fascinating that he didn’t examine it sculpturally, but by drawing it – his sculptural works presented alongside this exhibition were created in advance, and quite independently of his intensive examination of this sculpture by Ludwig Münstermann.

It might, after all, appear rather inconsequential to point out yet another parallel between Münstermann's Apollo and the works by Markus Lüpertz: considering Lüpertz’s oeuvre, one soon realizes: at the heart of his artistic interest, and with nowadays downright amazing perseverance, is the human figure. Maybe this is part of the reason why he is so enthralled by the Bode Museum as a whole: Almost nowhere can the history of figurative art be studied as seamlessly, as perfectly as here. In addition, there are countless examples of the ever-changing relationship of European art with its ancient origins and archetypes. Münstermann's apparent distance to the ancient canon is one of many possibilities, and Donatello, Pigalle and Canova each present different positions – just as Lüpertz, whose works use the names of ancient heroes in their titles for good reason. And when Markus Lüpertz actually approaches the Annunciation by Francesco di Valdambrino in the truest sense of the word, namely with one of his sculptural works, we realize that he appreciates the, in this case, completely different properties of the delicate figure, its preserved original colouring and its almost lyrical expression, just as much as the, in contrast, apparently more primitive carving of Münstermann's Apollo. The monumental bronzes in the courtyards on both sides of the Kamekehalle enter, at a distance, yet unmistakably, into a fascinating dialogue with Andreas Schlüter’s large sandstone figures.

It is a pleasure to visit the Bode Museum with Markus Lüpertz and, at the same time, a unique experience. He knows how to express his astonishment, admiration, indeed his amazement, in brief remarks. And ultimately, his willingness to present his own work in this environment can be seen as an act of personal devotion to this art and these artists: His works are perhaps different from all those housed at the Bode Museum, but they are, in his own words “Nothing New”.