MERKAVAH MYSTICISM MEETS ART: The Modern Art Museum of Fort Wort has an exhibition of the paintings etc. of German artist Anselm Kiefer, which includes themes from the pre-Kabbalistic mystical Hekhalot literature.

A weighty world of art

ART REVIEW: Anselm Kiefer's giant works tackle life's big issues

12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, September 25, 2005

By JANET KUTNER / The Dallas Morning News

FORT WORTH – It's a visceral experience – scorched landscapes that reek of death and destruction, lead books that carry the weight of the world. Anselm Kiefer, one of the most prodigious talents to emerge from postwar Germany, uses his generation's efforts to surmount the nation's troubled past as a springboard for exploring the age-old quest for transcendence.

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Steeped in literature, history, folklore, theology and mystical beliefs as disparate as alchemy and the Jewish doctrine of Kabbalah, Mr. Kiefer grapples with the big issues: good vs. evil, innocence and guilt, church and state. But he speaks in terms that anyone with feeling can understand.

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One of the largest paintings in the show, The Heavenly Palaces, actually has a massive piece of lead attached to the canvas. It lends an ominous, cloudlike presence to a cavernous hall.

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The Heavenly Palaces takes its name from an ancient Hebrew book known as the Sefer Hechaloth, which describes an ascent through seven heavenly palaces that lead to one in which the wise will be united with God.

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Sefer Hekhalot is the Hekhalot text also known as 3 Enoch, a book that tells of Enoch's tranformation into the archangel Metatron, the "Little YHWH," who takes Rabbi Ishmael on a tour of the secrets of the universe. But it sounds to me as though the inspiration may actually be from the Hekhalot Rabbati, the Greater Book of Heavenly Palaces, which actually does include instructions for and an account of the ascent through the seven celestial palaces to the throne room of God. In any case, this is cool.