“Werner Tübke – a neo-Renaissance bourgeois backward looker or a new interpreter of social realism?

Panorama Museum atop the Schlactberg

By Hari Kumar 2 August 2024

Next year Bad Frankenhausen, an otherwise sleepy little town in Thuringia, Germany – will be crowded. For May 15th 2025 marks the 500th year anniversary of the great 1525 Peasant War. The town’s ‘Panorama Museum’ sits atop the battle-field of Mount Battle or ‘Schlachtberg’. There were many peasant wars, as Frederick Engels described in 1870. This one provoked the most savage butchery of the peasants in their greatest uprising.

I will review that war and the museum, and then consider whether the GDR painter Werner Tübke (1929-2004) was a ‘bourgeois or a socialist’ artist. Or whether he was none of those.

What happened at Bad Frankenhausen?
Grinding poverty and exploitation sparked many peasant wars or Jaqueries. In Europe these were directed against feudal lords including the clergy. The “peasants” of the 1525 Peasant War, were actually a united front of peasants and early city plebians. Müntzer had welded their disgruntlements together. The plebians of Bad Frankenhausen were formed from the salt-worker knechts (labourers or sometimes slaves) whose labour enriched the princes and the clergy.

The insurgent leader Thomas Müntzer (or Muenzer) was born in 1498. He differed from Luther in espousing a ‘communism’. Luther began the Reformation against the Catholic Church, but flinched at thorough-going reforms, and compromised with the feudal exploiting classes. Müntzer in contrast continued his early struggles from early on against reaction to a bitter end. Inspired by “the chiliastic works of Joachim of Calabria, he became a popular preacher. Engels summarises Müntzer’s struggles from early on against reactionary powers:

“In school at 15 years he organised “a secret union against the Archbishop of Magdeburg and the Roman Church in general”… he gained a doctor of theology degree and became chaplain in a Halle nunnery. Quickly he treated the dogmas and rites of the church with the greatest contempt. At mass he omitted the words of the transubstantiation, and ate, as Luther said, the almighty gods unconsecrated. Mediaeval mystics, especially the chiliastic works of Joachim of Calabria, were the main subject of his studies. It seemed to Muenzer that the millennium and the Day of Judgment over the degenerated church and the corrupted world, as announced and pictured by that mystic, had come in the form of the Reformation and the general restlessness of his time. He preached in his neighbourhood with great success.” Engels Chapter Two

“Chiliasim” or “Millenialism” was the popular belief (perhaps hope is better) that a Messiah would arrive to establish a new world of freedom – and before the ‘Last Judgement’. Chiliasim included the doctrines of Anabaptism, and the Hussites. Müntzer sought out “dreamy chiliastic sects” which had survived purges from prior revolts. Many such believers had been rooted out by the princes and clergy from earlier rebellions, but others:

“hid behind an appearance of humility and detachment, the rankly growing opposition of the lower strata of society against existing conditions… began to press … more boldly… the sect of the Anabaptists headed by Nicolas Storch (who) preached the approach of the Day of Judgment and of the millennium; they had “visions, convulsions, and the spirit of prophecy.” They soon came into conflict with the council of Zwickau. Muenzer defended them… they were compelled to leave the city, and Muenzer departed with them. … He then went to Prague and… joined the remnants of the Hussite movement. His proclamations, however, made it necessary for him to flee Bohemia also. In 1522, he became preacher at Allstedt in Thuringia.” Engels Chapter Two

Müntzer wanted to further Luther’s Reformation against the corrupt Church. That included “the sword” to sweep out corrupt clergy:

“Müntzer started reforming the cult. Before even Luther dared to go so far, he entirely abolished the Latin language, and ordered the entire Bible, not only the prescribed Sunday Gospels and epistles, to be read to the people… People flocked to him from all directions, and soon Allstedt became the centre of the popular anti-priest movement of entire Thuringia. Muenzer at that time was still theologian before everything else. He directed his attacks almost exclusively against the priests. He did not, however, preach quiet debate and peaceful progress, as Luther had begun to do at that time, but he continued the early violent preachments of Luther, appealing to the princes of Saxony and the people to rise in arms against the Roman priests. “Is it not Christ who said: ‘I have come to bring, not peace, but the sword’? … But these appeals to the princes were of no avail, whereas the revolutionary agitation among the people grew day by day. Muenzer, whose ideas became more definitely shaped and more courageous, now definitely relinquished the middle-class reformation, and at the same time appeared as a direct political agitator.”

While he primarily aimed at the Catholic church, he targeted current Christianity itself and called for “heaven in this life”. He praised “reason” which was true “faith”:

“Under the cloak of Christian forms, he preached a kind of pantheism, which curiously resembles the modern speculative mode of contemplation, and at times even taught open atheism. He repudiated the assertion that the Bible was the only infallible revelation. The only living revelation, he said, was reason… Faith, he said, was nothing else but reason become alive in man, therefore, he said, pagans could also have faith. Through this faith, through reason come to life, man became godlike and blessed, he said. Heaven was to be sought in this life, not beyond, and it was, according to Muenzer, the task of the believers to establish Heaven, the kingdom of God, here on earth. As there is no Heaven in the beyond, so there is no Hell in the beyond, and no damnation, and there are no devils but the evil desires and cravings of man. Christ, he said, was a man…
Muenzer preached these doctrines mostly in a covert fashion, under the cloak of Christian phraseology which the new philosophy was compelled to utilise for some time…”

In preaching such doctrines he “touched on” both atheism and communism:

“his political doctrine went beyond existing social and political conditions. As Muenzer’s philosophy of religion touched upon atheism, so his political programme touched upon communism… His programme, less a compilation of the demands of the then existing plebeians than a genius’s anticipation of the conditions for the emancipation of the proletarian element that had just begun to develop among the plebeians, demanded the immediate establishment of the kingdom of God, of the prophesied millennium on earth. This was to be accomplished by the return of the church to its origins and the abolition of all institutions that were in conflict with what Muenzer conceived as original Christianity, which, in fact, was the idea of a very modern church. By the kingdom of God, Muenzer understood nothing else than a state of society without class differences, without private property, and without superimposed state powers opposed to the members of society.” Engels Chapter Two

The confrontation was inevitable, as was the disparity between the opposing forces:

“Muenzer (had)… 8,000 men and several cannons… The men were poorly armed and badly disciplined. .. Muenzer possessed no military knowledge whatsoever. Nevertheless, the princes.. use(d) here the same tactics that so often helped – breach of faith. .. they concluded an armistice, but attacked the peasants before the armistice had elapsed. Muenzer stood with his people on the mountain… entrenched behind a barricade of wagons… discouragement… was rapidly increasing. The princes had promised amnesty should they deliver Muenzer alive. Muenzer assembled his people in a circle, to debate the princes’ proposals. A knight and a priest expressed themselves in favour of capitulation. Muenzer had them both brought inside the circle, and decapitated… (but) the princes’ soldiers had encircled the entire mountain, and approached in close columns, in spite of the armistice. A front was hurriedly formed behind the wagons, but already the cannon balls and guns were pounding the half-defenseless peasants, unused to battle… Out of 8,000 peasants, over 5,000 were slaughtered… Muenzer, was captured… put on the rack in the presence of the princes, and then decapitated. He went to his death with the same courage with which he had lived. He was barely twenty-eight when he was executed.”        Engels Chapter six

Entering the ‘Panorama Museum’.
The museum website says that it “presents the monumental painting “Early Bourgeois Revolution in Germany”. The picture above shows the building in which the painting is housed.

Visitors must first enter a dark, very large circular room from below. As people lift their eyes to the walls, most are stunned on being greeted and enfolded by a unique painting. The canvas is fourteen metre high spanning a giant 123 meters to depict 3,000 figures. At the bottom level a simple “parallel” perspective is used, but the upper part of the painting has a “central” perspective leading onto a seemingly endless horizon. Werner Tübke with one assistant took eleven years (1976-1987) to complete it.
The Museum opened in 1989, shortly before the GDR state collapsed.

Initially a long awe-struck period is experienced as one’s wits slowly recover from the sensory assault. Slowly some comparisons come to mind. The content matter of Pieter Brueghel the elder (1525–1569) and Hieronymous Bosch (1450-1516) is here wedded to the giant scale of Michaelangelo Buonarroti’s (1475-1565) Sistine Chapel ‘Last Judgement’ in Rome’s Vatican. The vision is simply rolled out into a circle rather than vaulting upwards as Michaelangelo’s. Here are Breughel’s peasants and plebians preyed on by princes and clergy. They play out the real every-day earthly life of -accounting of Heaven and Hell, in contrast to Michaelangelo’s promised eventual end. Accelerating the imagination are Boschian symbolisations.

The result is an extreme realism mixed with such Boschian imagery as to create an intense vivid and highly ‘expressionist’ image. It is not ‘naturalist’ art, but most figures are evidently real people. A partisan painting it is the opposite of ‘neutral’.

If you enter from the left, you are confronted by Müntzer in the center between swirling, warring parties. Tübke has painted his face from a medieval wood-cut, but shows Müntzer lowering the rebel-flag with its peasant boot insignia. Müntzer realises that the surrounding princes, and mercenaries have wiped out his forces. He stands under a rainbow enclosing the Schlactberg and the green battlefield, signifying hope and a binding with ‘God’.

Undoubtedly the content of this painting is progressive. Recall it was originally meant to be a homage to a revolutionary struggle. But Tübke is not about to explain matters in detail. In the film “Werner Tübke” (Director Reiner E. Moritz, ArtHaus Musik, RM Arts 1991) he bluntly says:

“It is not my goal to lecture people through the visual arts, or even to enrich them. And I don’t have visions, I don’t even know what it means. I don’t employ methods that are popular or the easiest to understand. But I work strictly according to what gives me pleasure. I have no sense of mission and I don’t ask whether I’m understood or not.“
At around 1 minute.

Does this forthrightness not remind one of Käthe Kollowtiz’s response to being castigated by the KPD? Unsurprisingly, one of his teachers Tübke most fond of, Katharina Heise, was a sympathiser and follower of Kollowitz.

So how is one to read this spectacle? 

First it is difficult to illustrate this, but the links in the text will give you a taste. The access to images is restricted and photography was not allowed in the Panorama Museum. Nonetheless…

For me one central message of the whole drama is that one must act for justice, even if action leads to failure. As if this is not powerful enough, hundreds of acts are depicted as performed by meticulous writhing figures. An excellent audio guide helps interpret them, available in many languages. The museum site states:

“Instead of a painting that illustrates the history of the “early bourgeois revolution in Germany” and educates the visitors in the sense of the state, he wants to focus on painting. In this way, the original concept recedes into the background; Tübke creates a picture that evades being fixed on a single statement.” official website

I dispute that, and the audio-guide would support me. As mentioned above, an abiding theme is justice and the exploitation of the peasant and working peoples. Another is the sway of reason as opposed to the play of chance as is everyday life for most was in 1525 and remains so, in 1976. In this piece I cannot convey each of the stories that unfold. Let us briefly scroll through fragments of the canvas.

Witness the scene of the elderly peasant woman and her husband bringing eggs, a goose and other victuals – as a tax to the table of their feudal lords dining on a long table. A finely dressed young lady aristocrat glances over her shoulder dismissingly, but the peasant woman witheringly holds her gaze. Or over there a ship is stranded on dry land with a boatman vainly paddles as he ferries the dignitaries of state. Here a clergyman is strung up on a dead tree surrounded by angry and mocking peasants. Wait! there are three gaming tables where at one kings and emperors (Kaiser Kari V and Francis I of France) play poker against each other for Northern Italy – the English king is depicted as arriving too late! Soldiers there pillage houses of peasants. Here the finely dressed Pope is roped in struggle against Luther while named academics debate in the guise of pigs, foxes and rats. Elsewhere Luther is a two-faced Janus – talking to poorly dressed people while also facing away from them.

And scattered throughout are several ‘Narr’ – or in English ‘fools’ or clowns. They pointedly comment on the contradictions and cruelties that unfold. But as they prance about, an opposite path might be taken. Just above Tübke’s signature, and below Müntzer’s flag-lowering, is shown a huge Well of Reason. Around it are 17 figures of the German Renaissance – including Hans Hut and Melchior Rinck both Anabaptist leaders; Hans Sachs a shoemaker-poet; Tilman Riemenschneider the wood-sculptor; Martin Luther and the painter Lucas Cranach; Albrecht Durer the artist; Nicholas Copernicus the physicist-astronomer; Paracelsus physician and chemist; and the merchants Jakob Welser and Jakob Fugg. Yes an eclectic and sometimes contradictory mixture – Luther and Anabaptists? Tübke presumably sees no straight line in history.

Onlookers are enthralled, moved and fascinated, and wish to learn about the acts depicted. It is in short, a masterpiece that engages with its audience.

Where is Tübke to be placed in art?

How did this masterpiece come about, how does Tübke’s worldview fit into the art history of the GDR?

In 1976 Tübke was Rector of the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig, when he was invited to do this by the GDR government. Before he accepted he demanded and obtained complete freedom in execution. Three years of painstaking research into the 15th-16th century (clothing, materials, painting etc) allowed him to build a working model scaled down to a tenth, which was endorsed as ‘historically authentic’:

“The first think I did was to refuse to use the set pieces, or to use central perspective… Then came the three year phase of invention in which I made the 14.2 m version… Following extensive theoretical studies I noted down, as if in a very large diary, the mood of the week, the month, painted in ancient robes. “                                                                                            Mortiz, Around 30 minutes 55 sec

“I was able to assert my concept without much trouble. I’d half finished the small version when the employer came from the Ministry of Culture, and 14 days later I received a letter of acceptance. Strangely enough it all went very smoothly.”                  Mortiz Ibid; at about 34 minutes

“The employer originally wanted a dramatic, brooding, stormy battle painting a la Borodino Panorama Museum in Moscow, because a battle had also taken place in Frankenhausen in 1525. But this was not possible for me nor did I think it was right. Because the panorama is a 19th century mass medium. The first think I did was to refuse to use the set pieces, or to use central perspective. Then I made sketches for a simultaneous image with a raised horizon. Then came the three year phase of invention in which I made the 14.2 m version. To be honest, I cannot provide any details of this period. Following extensive theoretical studies I noted down, as if in a very large diary, the mood of the week, the month, painted in ancient robes. “                                                   

Around 30 minutes 55 sec

Well before the Panorama, Tübke was already deeply immersed in the styles of the 15th-16th century – in particular Italian mannerism.

“My interest lies exclusively in art produced before Modernism. Up to Delacroix, roughly. I visit many galleries when I travel, but rarely contemporary galleries. It just turned out that way. There’s no concept behind it. I base my work on art from earlier centuries, but in my own way. I think it is legitimate. Others do it differently, so why not? In particular it is the transition periods, Italian Mannerism, for example, or old German masters, who have always inspired me. I don’t think you can choose what you relate to and how you do it. in my case it’s in my blood, and I don’t need to justify it. it wasn’t planned it just turned out that way. “ Film Dir. Moritz; Ibid; at about 0.45 sec

“This world is not unfamiliar to me. Particularly the Old Testament. I feel very at home in that entire world. I can’t be more precise, nor would I want to be.“ Film Dir. Moritz 5min 0s

He joined the Workers Party in 1950. But he was attacked for his passion for 15th-16th Century art in 1956 (“backward-looking’, ‘eclectic’). He continued to paint with no support until he was reappointed. Later his students defended him from another dismissal:

“I was then dismissed in 1957 for allegedly doing Western Art as it was then called, Madness! Or Surrealism. I returned to the Academy two years later, and in 1967 I was almost dismissed again, for the same reasons, but the students protested so I ended up staying.”
Film Dir Moritz. 11 min 45s

“Critics spoke of a misunderstanding of heritage reception and warned that eclecticism was contrary to Socialist Realism. … I don’t think that discussion affected my work. I admit that in the 50s and for quite some time, this tiresome, silly discussion did take place. And it was very destructive to artists, I have to say. It was never a big problem for me, it was terroristic and extremely tiring on a personal level. one can’t imagine it today.“
Film Dir Moritz. 19 min 30s

He became a professor in 1972, he then became Rector of the Academy. He produced a series of works on Hiroshima, and in 1965 his works on fascism received plaudits. Awarded a commission on “Workers and the Intellectuals” in 1970 for Leipzig university, he placed the leaders of Karl-Marx University and Party officials in the background. The brings students and workers together, placing the carpenters in front.
He resisted moving away from East Germany despite lucrative offers:

“Working as a painter in this country was not easy. In the 50s and 60s there was a lot of interference, a lot was changed for ideological reasons. Nonetheless it was possible to do what you felt was right even if it meant less money. But you can make do. There was also many opportunities though I won’t be specific, to leave the country. There were good offers, food financial offers with villas in Hamburg and so forth, but I remained in Leipzig where the children are. It’s not that I cling to Leipzig, but I never considered leaving the GDR. For whatever reasons I simply did my work and it worked out. But it wasn’t easy. It started getting easier after 1970, when Emilio Bertonati, a galerist from Milan, became interested in my work. My first exhibition in Milan and northern Italy followed. And then as is common in Germany and other countries it was officially recognized that I had something to offer.”
26 minutes 50 seconds

After the Pinochet coup in Chile he painted 1974 “Chilienisches Requiem”. Above it Tübke placed the words of Pablo Neruda “Nothing will be forgotten, ladies and gentlemen, and through my wounded mouth the others shall continue to sing”.

By now I hope the reader is convinced that his paintings confirm that whatever criticism he faced, he was clearly a committed progressive. In fact I think he was a committed ‘socialist’. However, what category was his art is to be classifed in? I propose it was a unique form of a marriage between socialist content, realist but also ‘magical’ realist forms.

He was not alone, but stood with the so-called Leipzig school. This included Trübke, Willi Sitte and Bernard Heisig. The latter said: “in 1972, “We [artists in East Germany] have the chance to take part in a worldview! “(April A. Eisman; “Bernhard Heisig and the fight for modern art in East Germany; Boydell & Brewer; 2018. p.5)

David Elliot curated an exhibition of East German art in the UK in 1984, and put it like this:

“Heisig, Willi Sitte, and Werner Tübke had been able to “revalidate [socialist realism] not as a style with recognizable physical attributes and finite duration but as an attitude which gave conviction to art.”        (cited April A. Eisman; Ibid)

Tübke’s art poses a challenge to those who argue that the GDR promulgated an ‘establishment’ socialist realism. Tübke was attacked both in the Ulbricht and the Honnecker era.

If you believe as I do that neither the Ulbricht or the Hoenneker governments were ‘socialist’ – how could Tübke’s major works have been state sponsored?

When the revisionists led by Khrushchev, took control of the USSR state, they were hampered by waverers (Malenkov and Molotov), but actively resisted by staunch Marxist-Leninists (Beria). The ultra-left revisionist stance of the 1953 GDR government led to the workers revolt. Beria attempted to reverse these and return to the Marxist-Leninist approach as put by Stalin. But Beria was executed by Khruschev. The GDR continued to adopt a revisionist path. 

The GDR was by the late 1950s simply a part of the Comecon network of states. The original purpose of the ‘People’s Democracies’ moving towards socialism, had been warped into becoming colonial outposts of the USSR revisionist, neo-imperialist state. The camouflage of a ‘socialist art’ tradition was useful to their pretence of being a workers state. That led the GDR to tolerate the Leipzig school.