War and Glory The Art of Valiant Defeat, Part Four By any measure the Franco-Prussian War was a disaster, not just for France but also for Europe and the future. This war cemented the rising destiny of Prussia as a major power on the continent and the defeat of France...
War and Glory From Meissonier to Detaille, Part Two In attempting to explain and understand the attraction of the French nation to the memory of the recently deposed, defeated and deceased disgraced Emperor Napoléon Ier (1769-1821), the Viscount François-René de...
War and Glory From Meissonier to Detaille, Part One Born during the revolutionary year of 1848, Jean-Baptiste Édouard Detaille (1848-1912) did not live to see the fate of the French army during the Great War. Riding the nostalgic wave of the cult of Napoléon, which...
War and Glory Lady Elizabeth Butler Since the dawn of time, war has been one of the favorite topics for artists. From the Egyptians to the Assyrians, war has been depicted as glorious and victorious, with the rulers smiting enemies and slaying any army foolish enough...
The End of the World: Ludwig Meidner and the Apocalyptic Paintings The avant-garde arrived late in Germany. Not only was modern art late, it also landed in the cities of Germany unchronologically, in bits and pieces, entirely lacking sequence, reft of developmental...
The Coming Apocalypse: Ludwig Meidner and the Poets In the winter of 1912, the German poet Georg Heym fell through a hole in the ice and drowned. The strange death of the twenty-four year of poet was surrounded by an odd mixture of conjecture and fact. It was thought...
