Why Germany would win the World Cup of modern art too

Beuys, Richter, Kiefer, Polke, Ernst … such a formidable lineup shows up British contemporary artists for the commercial, over-hyped and celebrity focused lightweights that they are

German art's Bastian Schweinsteiger … Anselm Kiefer. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe for the Guardian

Germany has proved its global footballing eminence by winning the 2014 World Cup, yet soccer is just one of many things Germans excel at. There's also art.

What is the most exciting show coming up in Britain this autumn? No question – it is the German artist Anselm Kiefer's exhibition at the Royal Academy. Kiefer is one of the most imaginative, original and serious artists alive. History hangs like snow-laden fir branches in the haunted forest of his art. He is a magic realist whose way of seeing makes most of our feted British artists look silly.

In fact, England (or even the whole of Britain) would have little chance against Germany in an artistic World Cup. Against a team of modern German artists that could boast the likes of Kiefer, Gerhard Richter,Joseph Beuys , Sigmar Polke, Max Ernst, Kurt Schwitters and Otto Dix, who could we put up? Overpaid stars like Damien Hirst and Marc Quinn, plus a few old-timers such as Stanley Spencer (whose name actually sounds like a 1930s football player) and Henry Moore (surely a Leeds goalkeeper in the days of long shorts).

Look further back in history and the contrast hardens: who would we play against such German legends as Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach the Elder and Matthias Grunewald? Well, we had all time ace Hans Holbein ... oh, but wait a moment. He was German too.

'German artists get on with the work': Gerhard Richter painting in his studio. Photograph: guardian.co.uk

To be fair, ours is not the only national art team that shrinks before the mighty Germans. Even France can hardly match the enduring excellence of German art. While Parisian modernism paled after the first world war,the German dadaists brought a vicious honesty into art in the Weimar age. Even though the French kicked off surrealism, the greatest surrealist art was made by Ernst. And Germany has been endlessly creative in art since 1960, too, as the Kiefer show will demonstrate. In short, there is every reason to see Germany as the greatest artistic nation in Europe.

The World Cup display of German talent is the moment for Britons to put aside the prejudices and scars left by 20th-century wars and wake up to the fact that Germany is not just modern Europe's economic powerhouse, but its cultural workshop, too, creating everything from beautiful football to sublime art.

English art really is like English football, too commercial and too celebrity-fixated, without producing the results to justify the fuss made about it. Meanwhile, German artists, like their footballers, get on with work of true merit. It's time to acknowledge and learn from the genius of Germany.