Village Church

Description

Although of American birth, Lyonel Feininger lived and worked abroad for most of his career. Arriving in Paris in 1911, the artist found the town transfixed by the idea of Cubism. Feininger saw in Cubism a tool, a means to an end. In contrast to the French Cubists who sought to explore the material world around them, Feininger wrote that his Cubism was "visionary, not physical."Feininger found in the bold simplicity of the woodcut medium the perfect means of expression for his own version of Cubism. Here he uses Cubist faceting and fragmentation to break up the structure of a medieval German church, dematerializing the building and endowing it with visionary and spiritual qualities.