Battle on Canvas: The Creation of a Monumental Painting by Werner Tübke (1988)

In 1987, after over ten years of work, Werner Tübke (1929-2004), one of East Germany’s most important painters, completed the monumental, oil-on-canvas painting The Early Bourgeois Revolution in Germany. Painted in the Renaissance styles of Albrecht Dürer and Albrecht Altdorfer, the painting—measuring 14 meters high and 123 meters wide—is in the Panorama Museum in Bad Frankenhausen, Thuringia, the site of the last battle of the German Peasants’ War. The museum was specifically built for the painting, one of the most figurative in recent art history.Interspersed with interviews with the artist, the documentary follows the complicated and elaborate creation of the monumental work, from signing the contract in 1976 to the last brush stroke on September 11, 1987. In 2011, the Panorama Museum was awarded the European Seal of Cultural Heritage.