The Last Mercenary (Der letzte Landsknecht)

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FROM THE BARNES FOUNDATION’S CATALOG

Klee's handwritten German title, Der letzte Landsknecht , appears at the bottom-right of this watercolor. The Landsknechte were formidable mercenary soldiers who served in the army of the Holy Roman Empire (a realm encompassing the modern nation of Germany and other areas of central and western Europe) from the late 1400s into the 1600s. Klee has painted the three-quarters bust of this soldier in a patchwork of somber crosshatched colors. His large, intense eyes are offset by thick eyebrows; he extends one hand to his viewers. Perhaps he embodies fragments of German cultural memory at the onset of a horrifying episode of the nation's history.

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