Die Wachtparade 1921

Lovis Corinth’s ‘Die Wachtparade’ is made of colored crayon on paper. You can see the way Corinth puts down marks, like scribbles, almost childlike, to evoke this kind of military parade. The sky is evoked with some blue smudges. He kind of captures a fleeting moment. I can imagine the artist outside in the cold, making fast notations of the soldiers on horseback. The red saddle blankets especially pop out. Maybe the artist added the colour later in the warmth of the studio. Notice the confidence of the marks. It seems that the artist has embraced the physical act of drawing. There is a long history of artists drawing horses, and I can imagine Corinth looking back at those traditions, maybe even while thinking forward to what painting could become. Artists are in an ongoing conversation, inspiring one another’s creativity across time.