Schlachtfeld (Battleground)

Willy Jaeckel, artist

1888–1944

Schlachtfeld (Battleground), 1915

Portfolio/Series title: Krieg und Kunst. Original-Steinzeichnungen der Berliner Sezession (War and Art. Original Lithographs from the Berlin Secession)

Where object was made: Germany

Material/technique: laid paper; lithograph

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 258 x 220 mm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 10 3/16 x 8 11/16 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 406 x 340 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 16 x 13 3/8 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 19 x 14 in

Credit line: Museum purchase: Letha Churchill Walker Fund

Accession number: 2008.0018

Not on display

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Images

Label texts

Exhibition Label:
"Conversation XVIII: World War I," Jan-2014, Stephen Goddard
Jaeckel was drafted into the German military and served first as a trench cartographer, then as an aerial photographer. Jaeckel openly opposed the war and one his most outspoken series of prints was officially censored. Thereafter, he was given leave to paint murals for the Bahlsen/TET factory in Hanover.

Exhibition Label:
“Machine in a Void: World War I & the Graphic Arts,” Mar-2010, Steve Goddard
Willy Jaeckel was drafted into the military, where he served as a trench cartographer and then as an aerial photographer. Jaeckel was openly against the War, and he was given leave to paint murals for the Bahlsen/TET factory in Hanover. Battleground addresses themes that surface frequently in images critical of the War: frantic and painful entanglement in barbed wire, which was used extensively in trench warfare to make it easier to target entrapped soldiers, especially with machine-gun fire; and the cruel and indiscriminate slaughter of horses that were still used in combat during the First World War. Jaeckel’s most important wartime effort, a lithographic portfolio, Memento 1914/1915, was suppressed for its explicit scenes of military savagery. A reproduction of one of the prints in Memento 1914/1915 can be seen in the journal Licht und Schatten, also exhibited here.