The themes of myth and German history have been prominent in all of Anselm Kiefer’s lonely, beautiful and dehumanized work. Kiefer, now the subject of a major retrospective at London’s Royal Academy, took up the challenge to post-war German artists to respond to Hitlerism when from the wooden Valhallas he made in the 1970s to the vast Mistero delle Cattedrali of 2011, he figured the Third Reich as a vast pseudo-civilizing ambition now crumbled to rubble. The ‘Mystery of the Cathedrals’, also installed in London, opened with gigantic tableaux morts of Berlin’s ruined Tempelhof Airport. When it closed in 2008 Kiefer immersed himself in the demolition of a key building in Nazi architect Albert Speer’s plan for a transformed German capital.

But his focus on empty spaces and decay also has greater reach. It suggests nameless hubristic cultures razed from the earth time and again. His preoccupation is with life passing over…