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Declaration of War

Declaration of War

Artist/Maker (German, 1884–1950)
Date1914
MediumDrypoint
DimensionsImage: 7 13/16 × 9 13/16 in. (19.8 × 24.9 cm)
Sheet: 12 × 15 1/2 in. (30.5 × 39.4 cm)
Credit LineSpecial Acquisitions Fund (through an anonymous gift)
Edition1 of 50 impressions
Object number1968.48
Status
Not on view
CopyrightPublic domainMore Information
In early August 1914, months of unsteady international peace were officially concluded with Germany's declarations of war on Russia, France, and Belgium. Here, Beckmann depicts various reactions to this decision. For these carefully observed portraits, he may have drawn directly from the crowds gathered outside the Crown Prince's Palace in Berlin, awaiting the decision of the government. Beckmann's own experience serving in the army medical corps, and his subsequent nervous breakdown and disenchantment with German society, significantly altered the style of his graphic works after 1914.
Exhibition History
War and Anti-War Images from Four Centuries
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (September 21, 1982 - October 24, 1982 )
Love, Glory and Guns: Images of Peace and War from the Permanent Collection
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (October 3, 1986 - November 16, 1986 )
From Expressionism to the New Objectivity: German Prints and Drawings, 1905-1945
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (June 28, 1988 - August 21, 1988 )
Images of War: Ritual and Reality
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (August 15, 1995 - October 22, 1995 )
Utopia and Alienation: German Art and Expressionism, 1900-1935
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (September 17, 1999 - December 19, 1999 )
"To Make Things Visible": Art in the Shadow of World War I
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (February 3, 2009 - June 7, 2009 )
Between Fact and Fantasy: The Artistic Imagination in Print
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (January 17, 2014 - June 22, 2014 )
Collections
  • Modern & Contemporary
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