A historical epic art for dangerous times. What form do artworks take in extreme cases of collective experience? What signals do artists send when enemies are at the city walls and the rule of law is collapsing, or when a tyrant suspends the law to attack from within? Art in a State of Siege tells the story of three fascinating images created in dangerous moments and the people who experienced them — from Philip II of Spain to Carl Schmitt — whose frantic gaze turned the works into points of prophecy.

The renowned art historian Joseph Kernner travels back to the eve of the iconoclastic and religious war to explore the most enigmatic painting ever created. In Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Delights, enemies are everywhere: Jews and Ottomans at the gates, witches and heretics at home, sins overwhelming the mind. Following a path that leads from Bosch’s time to World War II, Kernner examines a monumental self-portrait painted by Max Beckmann in 1927. Created when Germany was often governed by emergency decrees, this image boldly claimed to determine Europe's future — until the Nazis deemed it a threat to the German people.

For South African artist William Kentridge, Beckmann embodied “art in a state of siege.” Kernner shows how his work served as a beacon during the era of racist apartheid in South Africa and inspired Kentridge’s innovative animations of drawings that are created, erased, and redone.

Spanning half a millennium but urgent today, Art in a State of Siege reveals how, in difficult times, art becomes the currency of last resort.

Pages: 408, Dimensions: 16.5x16.5cm