Before the End
95 x 120cm
![Before the End](https://www.wernerberg.museum/_Resources/Persistent/b/f/3/8/bf389ccade11211789178e8250c83ef89ed46d55/1224_Vor_dem_Ende_1979_T16.jpg)
Resembling bent fingers of a hand writhing in pain, two crippled trees tower up out of the snow. Placed in the middle of the painting, they appear to be a distorted reflection of the artist’s monogram in the right lower corner of the pictures. Surfacing out of the depth, a magical dim-red light illuminates the gloomy sky.
Here too, the real spur for making the picture – the sight of the floodlight from a power station in the valley penetrating the thick winter fog, with the two trees in irreversable ruin – is translated into the confession about the artist’s existence. The image of the landscape becomes a metaphor for lonliness, disease amd transience.