The Death-Dance Anno (Vom Totentanz Anno) by Otto Wirsching (Germany, 1915)
From the collection of Richard Sica
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Description of the portfolio from a Lawrence University library exhibit:
According to Theime-Becker, this portfolio was the most significant of the many "death dances" produced during the First World War. In its style, one recognizes immediately Wirsching's international allusion to the medieval German masters of the woodcut. His choice of images, however, is distinctly modern: the figure of Death, in the traditional form of a skeleton, confronts a variety of contemporary figures who will meet their doom as a result of the devastation of this new war. The first plate shows a peasant in the field learning of the declaration of war from his newspaper; Death appears over his shoulder and steals the farmer's scythe. In another plate, Wirsching shows Death leading a spy by a rope, depicted as the obvious Jewish stereotype of the moneylender-evidence of the prevalence in German society of this anti-Semitic view... As a whole, Vom Totentanz is a grim indictment of the evil of war and man's innate inhumanity to man. By alluding so directly to the hallowed stylistic tradition of the German Totentanz, Wirsching's philosophical message is all the more damning.
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Wirsching bio (1889–1919) from the same site: Despite his thorough knowledge of Mediterranean art, Wirsching’s greatest artistic inspirations were the paintings and woodcuts of the great German masters of the Renaissance; he studied these works avidly at Munich’s City Library. When he returned to Munich at the beginning of 1913, he moved to the nearby village of Dachau, since the 1880s an important artists’ colony of the naturalist school. When war broke out, he served in the artillery, but was back in Dachau by 1916. Here he painted and also perfected his skill as a graphic artist, creating a fanciful style that translated his knowledge of the German Masters into a modern idiom. He became a leading artist of the new Dachau school, which took on a more Expressionist mode. He supported himself by making woodcut ex-libris and greeting cards for members of Munich’s artistic circles. He married in Dachau the Hungarian painter, Ankara Kowatsch. Signs of the mental instability—no doubt exacerbated by the unrecognizable presence of a brain tumor—began to appear in 1916 or 1917. He continued nonetheless to produce woodcut series and illustrations for books, as well as paintings which incorporated traditionally religious and mythological motifs into contemporary settings. While placing a new print into the press, he fell dead to the ground, the victim of a stroke. [via]
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"Wirshing shows Death leading a spy by a rope, depicted as the obvious Jewish stereotype of the moneylender—evidence of the prevalence in German society of this anti-Semitic view."
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See all posts from the collection of Richard Sica
Description of the portfolio from a Lawrence University library exhibit:
According to Theime-Becker, this portfolio was the most significant of the many "death dances" produced during the First World War. In its style, one recognizes immediately Wirsching's international allusion to the medieval German masters of the woodcut. His choice of images, however, is distinctly modern: the figure of Death, in the traditional form of a skeleton, confronts a variety of contemporary figures who will meet their doom as a result of the devastation of this new war. The first plate shows a peasant in the field learning of the declaration of war from his newspaper; Death appears over his shoulder and steals the farmer's scythe. In another plate, Wirsching shows Death leading a spy by a rope, depicted as the obvious Jewish stereotype of the moneylender-evidence of the prevalence in German society of this anti-Semitic view... As a whole, Vom Totentanz is a grim indictment of the evil of war and man's innate inhumanity to man. By alluding so directly to the hallowed stylistic tradition of the German Totentanz, Wirsching's philosophical message is all the more damning.
Wirsching bio (1889–1919) from the same site: Despite his thorough knowledge of Mediterranean art, Wirsching’s greatest artistic inspirations were the paintings and woodcuts of the great German masters of the Renaissance; he studied these works avidly at Munich’s City Library. When he returned to Munich at the beginning of 1913, he moved to the nearby village of Dachau, since the 1880s an important artists’ colony of the naturalist school. When war broke out, he served in the artillery, but was back in Dachau by 1916. Here he painted and also perfected his skill as a graphic artist, creating a fanciful style that translated his knowledge of the German Masters into a modern idiom. He became a leading artist of the new Dachau school, which took on a more Expressionist mode. He supported himself by making woodcut ex-libris and greeting cards for members of Munich’s artistic circles. He married in Dachau the Hungarian painter, Ankara Kowatsch. Signs of the mental instability—no doubt exacerbated by the unrecognizable presence of a brain tumor—began to appear in 1916 or 1917. He continued nonetheless to produce woodcut series and illustrations for books, as well as paintings which incorporated traditionally religious and mythological motifs into contemporary settings. While placing a new print into the press, he fell dead to the ground, the victim of a stroke. [via]
"Wirshing shows Death leading a spy by a rope, depicted as the obvious Jewish stereotype of the moneylender—evidence of the prevalence in German society of this anti-Semitic view."
See all posts from the collection of Richard Sica