On Masculinity and Male Sexuality in Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's Soldiers' Bath

Abstract

This essay examines Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's painting Soldiers' Bath, the largest picture that Kirchner produced on the subject of military life after his brief experience as a recruit during the First World War. Through close visual analysis, iconographic comparison, consideration of the artist's social circle, and discussion of the widespread public interest in, and explosive scandals about, the sexuality of German soldiers, the essay questions the almost unanimous art‐historical understanding of the painting. Linking the principles of the social history of art with fundamental insights from queer theory, it argues that the painting is not only an expression of anti‐war criticism. While differing significantly from Kirchner's many other depictions of bathers, this ambitious and ambivalent painting, which is beautifully composed but not without traces of anxiety, is also seen as a symptom of a crisis of gender and sexuality that the painter seems to have experienced at that time.