Der irrende Ritter – Künstler-, Kampf- und Kriegerromantik zum Ersten Weltkrieg

Kathrin Hoffmann-Curtius The Knight Errant. Romanticizing the Artist, Battle, and the Warrior in the World War One Era The article focuses on German paintings from the turn of the twentieth century to theWeimar Republic. Most notably before the First World War, painters, writers, and philosophers were attracted to the image of the lone, virtuous knight, representing unconquerable masculine power while excluding femininity and sexual life. With regard to the history of interpreting Albrecht Dürer’s famous engraving “Ritter, Tod und Teufel”, the article explores how Hans Thoma, Max Slevogt, Lovis Corinth, Oskar Kokoschka, and Paul Klee perform and deconstruct the knight’s heroic masculinity before and after the war