The German artist Joseph Beuys was highly charismatic figure whose sculptures, made from substances such as fat, felt, wax, honey, copper and bronze has distinctive symbolic associations that he derived from science, anthropology and identified with animals such as the stag, which Beuys associated with the power to move freely between the physical world and spirit realism. One of his last and most dramatic works, Lightning with Stag in its Glare 1958-85 brings together, in an apocalyptic flash of lightning many of the themes that had obsessed him throughout his life.
'In the massive installation Lightning with Stag in its Glare (1958-85), the suspended, bronze triangle embodies the energy of a powerful flash of lightning, which illuminates a group of half-formed creatures. The ‘stag’ of the title was originally made from an ironing board and then cast in bright aluminium to suggest the glare of the lightning. The cart represents a goat, and the clods of bronze on the floor are primordial creatures. A small compass, mounted on top of a box, is another reference, with the lightning flash itself, to the natural energies of the earth.'
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