Anselm Kiefer, Twilight of the West (Abendland), 1989

The art of postmodern painters reflects methods and imagery drawn from any and every movement or style from the history of art. Anselm Kiefer uses the symbolic capacity of materials to communicate deeper meaning. For example, in this work the lead is used because it refers to the failure of alchemy (in the mIddle Ages it was believed that lead could be turned into gold). This image represents an industrial wasteland that may exist now or during the Nazi era, or carrying troop trains in World War I. It could span many different eras in German history, and that is what Kiefer intends.