02 Works, The Art of War, Ferdinand Hodler's Excerpt of the German students in the War of Freedom of 1813, with footnotes

Ferdinand Hodler

Excerpt of the German students in the War of Freedom of 1813, c. 1908

Oil on canvas

height: 358 cm (11.7 ft); width: 546 cm (17.9 ft)

Museum Association Thuringia

The painting, executed in the style of a fresco, is composed horizontally. In the lower zone, the motif of the departure is carried out in two individually designed groups; in the upper half, the column of students going into battle can be seen against the background of a Jena landscape.

Ferdinand Hodler  (1853–1918)

The exodus of German students into the War of Freedom of 1813, c. 1908

Black chalk, pen and ink and blue ink on paper

height: 47.2 cm (18.5 in); width: 66.2 cm (26 in)

Art collections in Weimar

After the devastating defeat of Napoleon's Grande Armée in the Russian campaign of 1812, Johann Yorck – the general in command of the Grande Armée's German auxiliaries (Hilfskorps) – declared a ceasefire with the Russians on 30 December 1812 via the Convention of Tauroggen. This was the decisive factor in the outbreak of the German campaign the following year.

The German campaign was fought in 1813. Members of the Sixth Coalition, including the German states of Austria and Prussia, plus Russia and Sweden, fought a series of battles in Germany against the French Emperor Napoleon, his marshals, and the armies of the Confederation of the Rhine - an alliance of most of the other German states - which ended the domination of the First French Empire. More on The German campaign of 1813

Ferdinand Hodler, (born March 14, 1853, near Bern—died May 20, 1918, Geneva), one of the most important Swiss painters of the late 19th and early 20th century.

He was orphaned at the age of 12 and studied first at Thun under an artist who painted landscapes for tourists. After 1872, however, he worked in a more congenial atmosphere at Geneva, under Barthélémy Menn. By 1879, when Hodler settled in Geneva, he was producing massive, simplified portraits owing something to the French realist painter Gustave Courbet. By the mid-1880s, however, a tendency to self-conscious linear stylization was visible in his subject pictures, which dealt increasingly with the symbolism of youth and age, solitude, and contemplation, in such works as “Die Nacht” (1890; “The Night,” Kunstmuseum, Bern), which brought him acclaim throughout Europe. From this time his serious work can be divided between landscapes, portraits, and monumental figural compositions. The latter works present firmly drawn nudes who express Hodler’s mystical philosophy through grave, ritualized gestures. These pictures are notable for their strong linear and compositional rhythms and their clear, flat, decorative presentation. More on Ferdinand Hodler

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