Wir Wollen Leben/Zeichnet Kriegsanleihe
Artist
Karl Sigrist
Germany, 1885 - 1986
Printer
Propaganda Stuttgart
Germany
Datec. 1917
Dimensions23 1/4 x 37 1/4 in. (59.1 x 94.6 cm)
ClassificationsPoster
Credit LineGift of Peter A. Blatz
Object numberPH.157
DescriptionThe image in this poster, designed by Karl Sigrist, a Stuttgart-born painter and illustrator, promotes a war loan and is intended to appeal to a very primal sense of German patriotism. Sigrist has designed it in the style of a traditional German woodcut of the 16th century, and the lettering below is also printed in the Fraktur typeface introduced during that time. His burgher (townsman) here, fist clenched as he stands against the buildings of the southern German city of Stuttgart, represents the kind of German craftsman and guild member celebrated in Richard Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Mastersingers of Nuremberg) and a key symbol of German national identity. The mother and infant in the scene, and the playing child, reinforce the message and sentimental appeal of this composition, suggesting that not only German culture but also the lives of innocents are at stake. On View
Not on view
