From 1970 to 1972, Kiefer was a student of Joseph Beuys, and this period would later have a great influence on his artistic practices. However, unlike Beuys, inclined to tinge everything with ideology, Kiefer fuses nature and culture in his works. At first, his works were exhibited and appreciated primarily outside of Germany. Dein und mein Alter und das Alter der Welt draws its inspiration from a verse written by the Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann in his work Invocation of the Big Dipper. Kiefer thinks of the past not as something to eliminate, but rather as a kind of stratification of continually revised, reassessed, and reshaped events. As a former weaver, the German artist spreads and superimposes layers of color, mixing story and history, alchemical and architectural codes, symbols and allegories. The books symbolize the man’s intervention in nature and, simultaneously,  the foundation of culture.