Self-Portrait as a Soldier

1915

Oil on canvas, 69 × 63.3 cm. Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio

The painter shows himself in artillery uniform, cigarette at his lips, raising a bloody stump where his painting hand should be. Lecturer David Gariff reads the severed hand as a symbol of trauma.

Inducted in 1915, he was let go for illness and depression, then spent time in clinics after a breakdown.
Look at the nude behind him, who may be a live model or a painting.
Flat zones of blue, red and ochre sit side by side with little shading.
Blank, dark eyes give the face an emptied look, putting inner state ahead of a faithful likeness.
In 1937 the Nazi regime stripped museums of modern art it branded "degenerate"; this canvas was seized and hung with mocking labels in the touring Degenerate Art show. The Allen bought it in 1950.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · PD-Art