Born in 1945 in Germany two months before the end of the war, Anselm Kiefer studied in Düsseldorf with Conceptual artist Joseph Beuys, who encouraged him to paint and taught him about alchemy: the ancient science aimed at transforming lead into gold. Beuys and other artists used this as a metaphor for their practice--transforming base materials into mystical touchstones. In Kiefer's case, this manifested itself as an effort, through painting, to turn the poisonous episodes of recent German and world history into something that might lead to understanding or illumination. "Art," Kiefer says, "should ask the important questions." Emanation seems to be an image of transcendence, of a connection between the earthly and heavenly realms. The poured-lead form connecting the sky and the sea in the center of the work has been spoken of as a reference to the Kabbalah--a book of the Old Testament that tells of God appearing to the Israelites in the wilderness in the form of pillars of cloud and fire.