Going Under:
War and Disillusionment

Kevin Cannon

 

"Hell" is the title of a series of prints produced by Max Beckmann in
response to the First World War (1914-18). No other title could better
summarize one German's perspective on his fallen nation. In 1920, art
historian Paul F. Schmidt described Beckmann's national portrait as one
of "[s]piritual devastation, dread, hopelessness as the legacy of the
period of war and revolution, cripples and the morally defective heirs
of the 'Grand Time': That is Germany" (qtd. in Long 152). After four
years of fighting, the war laid claim to the lives of over twelve
million soldiers on both sides of the front (Cork 9). It is a wonder,
then, that something so fraught with suffering enjoyed so much support
in its early stages. Many artists saw an international purging as the
only way to realize a shared utopian vision for a new Germany.

For some Expressionists, the need for social purging had its
roots in Friedrich Nietzsche's seminal work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
(1883-85). In the prologue, the prophet Zarathustra travels from his
mountain dwelling to a city, where he confronts a crowd of people. While
Zarathustra and the crowd look on, a tightrope walker attempts to cross
a precarious rope bridge that separates, in Nietzsche's words, "beast
and overman [Übermensch]" (126). For the Expressionists, who took this
symbolism to heart, the end of the tightrope meant the beginning of a
utopian reality. Sweeping advances in technology and an explosion of
industrialization at the turn of the century inspired many to believe
that a utopian society was possible, even probable. Contemporary art
historian Valerie Fletcher states that "[w]ith the end of the nineteenth
century, millions of people felt that a millennium - that is, a period
of great goodness and happiness, of perfect government and freedom from
the imperfections of human existence - was at hand" (16). To reach this
utopian goal, however, Nietzsche demanded sacrifice. In Zarathustra, in
a section titled "Of War and Warriors," Nietzsche writes that "it is the
good war that hallows any cause" (159). Perhaps references like these
allowed the Expressionists to convince themselves that there could be
such a thing as a "good war."

Franz Marc was one of the most ardent supporters of the war,
which may be surprising considering his artistic nature preceding the
event. Before 1913, Marc's canvases and prints were filled with the
idealized forms of animals in an Eden-like natural setting. His 1912
print, Tiger (Tiger, Fig. 10), is one example. The image of the tiger is
clearly an ideal, and not a sketch of an actual beast. Through
simplified, exaggerated forms, and decorative curves and patterns, Marc
had transformed the normally terrifying beast into a symbol of
tranquility. The tiger's shrugged head and doe-like eyes give the animal
a childlike innocence, as if it is contemplating the aesthetic qualities
of the forest rather than searching for its next meal. Images such as
Tiger give the impression that Marc had no notion of the impending
devastation of Germany. Perhaps the promise of utopia was enough
incentive for the artist to continue the treacherous crossing of the
tightrope, despite the threat of the abyss below.

Marc's artwork became darker in the year before the war broke
out, but he continued working with his animal theme. His figures, still
drawn in idealized forms, were now seen battling each other, or running
for safety from the forest that toppled around them. But far from
expressing a warning against impending violence, Marc fervently believed
that war was the most effective way to reach the end of the tightrope.
To this end, he volunteered for the cavalry in 1914. At first, his
letters from the front described war in literary and mythical terms, as
Ida Katherine Rigby details ("War" 162). Eventually the horror of war
caught up even to Marc's idealism. He was affected by the deaths that
surrounded him, including that of friend and artist August Macke in
October of 1914, as Richard Cork records (43). But disillusionment was
slow to take hold. By 1915, Marc still had not given up all allegiance
to the war effort. In a letter to his wife he wrote: "Better blood than
eternal deception; the war is just as much atonement as voluntary
sacrifice to which Europe subjected itself in order to 'come clean' with
itself" (qtd. in Long 164). He fell at Verdun less than a year later.

Art historian Peter Guenther points out that many artists,
including Marc, "believed that the war would be short and would truly
bring about a totally new beginning" (9). But not every artist entered
the war with the same level of idealistic enthusiasm. Ludwig Meidner
envisioned suffering and devastation on an apocalyptic scale years
before the war. He recorded his premonitions in the form of shocking,
lucid visions of fallen cities and mad crowds as early as 1908. Through
his images, he attempted to alert his contemporaries to reality, to see
the world as it was, and not as they wished it could be. Sensenmann über
apokalyptischer Stadt (Reaper over Apocalyptic City, Fig. 11) is no
exception. Thick, bulbous clouds descend upon an unsuspecting city,
spewing forth sharp lines that seem more like a violent spray of bullets
than raindrops. In the cloud's wake, the fallen city is hidden under a
cloud of smoke. The lines of the lithograph are curved and violent,
seemingly done at a frenzied pace, as if the artist were trying to
capture the image of a nightmare. But this image was printed in 1918,
ten years after Meidner began producing his visual warnings. In fact,
the Reaper, who hovers over and frames the destruction with his fragile
arm and scythe, appears to be Meidner himself (compare his
self-portraits, Cat. 56, 60, and 61). His head, as bulbous and heavy as
the cloud, is almost winking at the audience, reminding them that the
fate of this town - and Germany itself - should have been no surprise at
all.

Whether on or off the battlefield, the Great War left no one
unchanged. Käthe Kollwitz tried to grapple artistically with the death
of her son in 1914. Moving away from lithography, she sought woodcut as
a visceral and hence more appropriate medium. Rose-Carol Washton Long
surmises that Kollwitz "chose the woodcut medium after seeing an
exhibition of Ernst Barlach's prints in July 1920. She realized that the
powerful condensation of emotion she had been unable to achieve in
lithography and etching was available in the woodcut" (165).

Eight years after her son's death, Kollwitz published a series
of woodcut prints titled Der Krieg (War). Plate 2, Die Freiwilligen (The
Volunteers, Fig. 9), is a dramatic portrayal of a soldier being swept
along by Death itself. In A Bitter Truth: Avant-Garde Art and the Great
War, Richard Cork sensitively describes the image:

A trio of howling women give vent to their
chorus-like distress, and Kollwitz accentuates the fragmentation of
their lives by breaking off their figures well before the bottom of the
composition. The jagged strokes convey the wrenching pain of departure,
and one distraught mother still insists on clutching her son's hand. The
grip has already loosened, however. The young soldier, his eyes closed
and head thrown back in a trance-like state, is swept along by the
irresistible surge of motion propelling him towards the battlefield.
(271)

It is no surprise that the immediate enthusiasm for the war had
all but disappeared by 1918, especially with the ugly bloodletting that
came with the subsequent revolution in Germany. In the very text where
the artists found their call to arms, Nietzsche describes the ultimate
sacrifice that each individual will make: "I love him whose soul is
overfull so that he forgets himself, and all things are in him: thus all
things spell his going under" (128). The tightrope walker himself falls
prey to Nietzsche's warning as Zarathustra and the crowd look on.
Distracted, the tightrope walker falls to his death at Zarathustra's
feet, an unsettling end to the figure that had symbolized man's attempt
to reach a better world. But the Expressionists had not been blind to
Nietzsche's predictions about the fate of the tightrope walker. Instead,
they forged on, believing that the end goal justified the precarious
means. Inspired by utopian ideals and unencumbered by the knowledge of
probable failure, the Expressionists stepped on the tightrope, one by
one, and began walking.