DIE NIBELUNGEN IX, 1909

DIE NIBELUNGEN  IX, 1909

Carl Otto Czeschka (1878-1960)

Lithograph 

Signed and dated (on plate)

H 13,5 x W 14 cm (matrix)

Series: 1909 Die Nibelungen

Close with the Vienna Secession circle, Austrian Expressionist Otto Czeschka's designs serve as a perfect realization of the Gesamtkunstwerk — a total work of art in which all elements follow a single artistic idea.

First published in 1909, Czeschka's illustrations to Franz Keim's abridged version of the Nibelung saga, a mythic tale of royal wealth and betrayal, evoke an elegant and enchanted world in which stylized toy soldiers and chessboard knights, like the ones the artist displayed at the Viennese Kunstschau exhibition in 1908, stand guard or enact epic battles.