Marsden Hartley, Portrait of a German Officer, 1914, oil on canvas, 68.25” x 41.375”, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Marsden Harley [Public Domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Olivia Huffstetter, a student at Southwestern University in Georgetown, TX, wrote this post.
When we think about war, the first thought that comes to mind usually isn’t about a love affair or a relationship. However, this is just what American Modernist painter Marsden Hartley portrayed in a hidden manner in his painting Portrait of a German Officer from 1914.
Painted during World War I, Portrait of a German Officer is a memorial to Hartley’s lover, Karl von Freyburg, who died fighting in the war.
The shapes in the painting, inspired by Cubism, are intended to form an interpretation of a Freyburg’s body making references to him by including his initials “Kv. F” in the lower left hand corner and the letter “E” in the center of the painting representing Freyburg’s regiment the Bavarian Eisenbahn.
Without knowing the story behind the painting, one most likely would look at this work of art as a collage of random elements, but once you have learned what the elements mean, Hartley’s emotions of love and loss are truly felt and understood.
