The Berlin Wall - Oil Painting On Canvas Start Price USD 250,000.00 Current Price USD 250,000.00 Time Left - Bid Count 0 Buy It Now Price - Reserve Price - Start Time Sunday, July 06, 2008 End Time Wednesday, July 16, 2008 Location Gainesville, GA See more about 'The Berlin Wall - Oil Painting On Canvas' Description HISTORY OF THE BERLIN WALL In 1945 Berlin was divided on four sections. In 1948 the Communists cut Berlin off from West Germany. The Air-Lift brought food and heating materials, everything to keep Berlin alive. In the upper left-hand section of the painting, Josef Mahler depicts the Allies dropping candy bars from the airplanes to children of the war. Below the happy faces of children the sadness begins with the division of Germany by four liberating forces. As the second section continues the story and the painting, Mahler depicts the construction of the wall in 1961 that will effectively divide Berlin for 28 years. To demonstrate the wall's impact on German families, Mahler has painted a mother who has been separated from her children and her mother by concrete and barbed wire. Note the Germans jumping to freedom from the second story windows as East German police begin sealing up the lower floors of the buildings erected beside the wall. At the bottom of the painting, the Date is punctuated by a leaf torn from a calendar dated Aug. 13, 1961. The most shocking part of the painting, the centerpiece, is a representation of an event that happened four days after the wall was sealed. Peter Fechter, a young East German, is shot to death as he tries to escape over the wall. His mother, reaching up to him from the West German side, could not help him during the last 55 painful minutes of his young life. His body is left suspended from the barbed wire for several days as an example to any East Germans who may contemplate escape. The colors in the painting begin to lighten as Mahler replicates the graffiti painted on the wall. The words "KILLER", "STALIN" and "MORDER" are painted in blacks and gray. But the word "FREEDOM" is painted in red. Dark, shadowy figures, tunneling to freedom under the wall, are located at the bottom. Then the colors become even brighter. There is the sunshine, as Mahler shows the man chipping away at the wall with a small hammer. Also in this section, another German is on his knees, his eyes turned toward Heaven. A man and woman, separated for nearly three decades, embrace. On November 9, 1989 the Berlin wall came tumbling down. In the final section of the painting, Mahler shows the joining together of hands across the crumbling wall, representing the unification of Germany. A representation of a piece of the wall is painted to look so real that it appears to attached to the canvas. Dangling from the sample piece is a "For Sale" sign. Below this piece of wall, stained with Mahler's own blood, are 80 grave markers of men and women who paid for their freedom with their lives. Artist JOSEF MAHLER, a native of Wurzburg, W. Germany and an artist of international repute, celebrated the fall of the wall by setting the history of the wall on an enormous canvas, a 16 foot by 4 foot oil painting. MAHLER explains, "I wanted to record this history so that it is never repeated." Place a Bid!