Badende mit Kopf auf Knie (Bather with Her Head on Her Knee) 1913

Wilhelm Lehmbruck made this etching, Bather with Her Head on Her Knee, some time before his death in 1919. The artist was German, and as such, he was inevitably impacted by the events of the First World War. The image is stark. The lines are sparse but heavy, and this is a disturbing image of a nude woman, her head bent down to her knee, as if in sorrow. It lacks the sensuality we might expect from this common artistic subject. The print was produced during a time of immense upheaval, and we might ask whether it is a reflection on the brutal effect of World War I on the German psyche. Could this bather represent an entire country reeling from trauma? Looking at contemporary accounts of the artist, his other work and the art criticism of the period, we can see how powerful his work was in expressing the unease of the time.