R eferring simultaneously to the production and manipulation of images, the Fracturbilder rank among Georg Baselitz’s most important paintings. Drawing on a multitude of artistic sources ranging from nineteenth-century Saxon landscape painting to Cubist and Mannerist distortion, these works, of which Ein Werktätiger is a superlative example, see Baselitz build upon the preceding series of Helden (Heroes) to create a form of distorted figuration which eventually resulted in the first inversions, or upside-down compositions, executed in 1969. The Fracturbilder therefore lie at the intersection between two keys strains in the artist’s oeuvre: the desire to produce work that confronts the legacy of the Second World War, and the need to find a new way of creating images that objectify and distort the subject without moving into the realm of pure abstraction. The resulting paintings are fractured in every sense. On the one hand, the legacy of Saxon landscape paintings by artists such as Ferdinand von Rayski, which the hunt.mes n and animals depicted in Baselitz’s works are drawn from, is complicated by the appropriation of those traditional works by the Nazis to nationalistic ends; on the other, the style of representation, a post-Cubist approach, refers to a movement deemed degenerate by the same political group. These are paintings of and about division made in a country that had literally been split in half, with fragmentary influences, contradictory historical and visual information, and a subject riven in two by the fracture that gives this series its name.

In its featuring of the ax-wielding worker, Ein Werktätiger is fracturing the canvas in every sense; the pictorial field is fluidly and violently ruptured and dissected into a schizophrenic and splintered complexity. In terms of its subject, like almost all the works Baselitz produced in the 1960s, Ein Werktätiger refers to the notion of nationhood in the wake of World War II, juxtaposing the nostalgia of the pre-war era, symbolised by the woodworker wielding an ax, with the horror of the war, here brought to life by the raw bloody entrails. Speaking in 2007, Baselitz observed that “the artist… must, ought to do all he can – to escape the Zeitgeist. But what no-one can escape, what I could never escape, was Germany, and being German” (Georg Baselitz cited in: Exh. Cat., London, Royal Academy of Arts, Georg Baselitz, 2007, p. 11). However, when he began painting in the early 1960s, Baselitz saw that every effort was being made to do just that, not to excuse, but to excise that portion of German history from the collects ive consciousness. Duly, Baselitz began to paint in a fashion that refused to ignore this legacy, that sought to remind the viewer of Germany’s defeat. His first works were deliberately provocative, revolving around the image of a flayed, masturbating man. These works were followed by the Helden, which saw the artist draw upon Mannerist distortion to create images of defeated soldiers with titanic bodies and miniscule heads, holding brushes and flags as well as weapons, archetypes of the vanquished and depleted survivors of devastated post-war Germany. Finally, the ‘Heroes’ were transposed into the Frakturbilder, figuring as hunt.mes n, surrounded by animals or tools of their trade, cut up and disfigured by the eponymous compositional scheme.

The present work epitomises Baselitz’s aesthetic and thematic concerns during this pivotal period. The subject’s head is cut off at the top left of the canvas, while his body is furiously distorted, contorted and fragmented into flesh and earth-toned entrails. Are these fractured coiled forms part of the figure, or something altogether more sinister? Perhaps they are in fact a jumbled stack of human arms, echoing the terror evoked by one of the most celebrated fracture paintings, B für Larry, where the central figure is torn apart and littered across the canvas. This ambiguity is pivotal and speaks to Baselitz’s entirely novel style of representation, one that reassesses modern German values through the lens of canonical painting. Provocative, challenging and of seminal importance, the Fracturbilder are the culmination of the aesthetic and conceptual tenets that define Baselitz’s painting from the 1960s, and the works that provided foundation for his production over the following fifty years. Evidencing his sheer mastery of this unique painterly style, Ein Werktätiger is an exceptional painting that evinces a savage beauty as well as the conceptual rigour that characterises the very best of Baselitz’s work.

「Fracturbilder 」（意為「分裂的圖畫」）系列既是圖像的製造，亦是圖像的操縱，是格奧爾格・巴塞利茲的重要繪畫創作。這些包括本作《工人》在內的作品從眾多藝術源流中汲取靈感，上至十九世紀的薩克森風景畫，下至立體主義和矯飾主義的扭曲結構，藝術家在之前「Helden」（意為「英雄」）系列的基礎上，創造出扭曲變形的體態，最終發展成在1969年誕生的第一幅倒轉畫。因此「Fracturbilder」系列是藝術家兩個重要時期的交叉點——他一方面希望創作正視二戰後遺創傷的作品；另一方面需要尋找為主題注入客觀色彩並將之扭曲變形的新方法，同時避免進入純然抽象的領域。由此衍生的畫作從任何方面而言都是斷裂的片段。首先，巴塞利茲從費迪南・馮・雷斯基（Ferdinand von Rayski）等薩克森風景畫家筆下的獵人和動物身上得到啟發，但是這些傳統作品卻曾被納粹挪用作民族主義宣傳；其次，巴塞利茲採用後立體主義表現風格，而立體主義也曾被納粹誣衊為墮落的藝術。這些是遭到撕裂、而且是關於撕裂的畫作，它們來自一個在現實中版圖被一分為二的國家，靈感來源殘缺且不連貫，充斥著自相矛盾的歷史和美學背景，畫中題材四分五裂，系列也因而得名為「分裂的圖畫」。

《工人》刻畫一名手握斧頭的伐木工，構圖同樣支離破碎，畫面被不假思索地猛烈撕開、解構，糾結成一片錯亂零碎的蕪雜。一如所有巴塞利茲1960年代的作品，《工人》隱喻了二戰後的國族身份境況；它同時反映出對戰前生活的緬懷以及戰爭的恐怖，前者化身為揮舞斧頭的伐木工，後者則借助顏色粗糙的內臟腸子得以呈現。巴塞利茲在2007年說過：「藝術家……必須、應該竭盡所能，逃離某種時代精神。但是無人能夠逃避、包括我也永遠無法逃避德國和德國人這個身份」（格奧爾格・巴塞利茲，引述自倫敦皇家藝術學院展覽圖錄《格奧爾格・巴塞利茲》，2007年，頁11）。然而巴塞利茲在1960年代初開始作畫時，發覺一切努力都是為了逃避和抹除那段大眾意識裡的德國歷史，而非對過去釋懷，於是他拒絕在作品中漠視那段會勾起德國戰敗回憶的過去。首批作品故意挑動觀者神經，畫中經常出現一個赤身露體進行自瀆的男子。「Helden」系列緊隨其後，藝術家受到矯飾主義誇張拉長的人體啟發，創造出軀體健碩但頭顱細小的戰敗士兵，他們拿著毛刷、旗幟和武器，代表戰後萎靡不振、身無長物的德國倖存者。「Helden」系列之後是「Frakturbilder」，畫中獵人身邊圍繞著各種動物和狩獵工具，畫面顧名思義，顯示割碎、變形的構圖。

巴塞利茲在這段關鍵時期的美學和主題思想在本作中反映得淋漓盡致。左上角是伐木工被切斷的頭顱，極度畸形的身軀分割成一塊塊血肉和泥棕色的內臟。這些彎曲盤繞的形狀究竟是人體的一部分，還是其他更加邪惡的東西？也許它們真的是纏作一團的手臂，呼應著另一幅著名畫作《B für Larry》裡駭人的殘肢斷臂。這種模棱兩可其實至關重要，巴塞利茲用歧義強調自己嶄新的表現風格，透過主流繪畫重新審視現代德國的價值觀。「Fracturbilder」系列挑戰感官，撩撥人心，開創從1960年代起界定巴塞利茲畫風的美學與概念宗旨，為他隨後五十多年的創作生涯奠定基礎。《工人》展示他對這種獨特畫風的駕馭能力，畫面流露一種殘暴的野蠻之美，而且蘊涵巴塞利茲最出色作品所具備的嚴謹理念。