Drenched in blood
Catalog exhibition "Die Farben des Königs"
A figure, perhaps a wounded soldier who strides towards the observer in a bloody red, could be read from the sheet called “Enemy Lines” by Marianne Gielen. Maybe the figure is just a coincidental association provoked by the title of the sheet. The artist refers to a central issue in the life of the Prussian king: war as an instrument to continue policy. However, the distinctive feature of the ruler was to care less about political matters in the first place, but instead outright start the war. Surprise attacks over the area of the former Silesia several times got the general into dilemmas that almost led to the military catastrophe. His remarkable military skills kept him from failure as well as his raging determination that considered the purpose of his existence as an absolutistic king to be the increase of his own glory.
The special military strategy that he developed was extremely beneficial to his achievement as a warlord. The commander deployed soldiers one after another in long rows and relentlessly let them march in the direction of the combatant with 90 steps per minute. If a soldier fell the one in the following file would then fire instead. If the war machinery hit soldiers that were lying on the ground, they rammed the bayonet into their bodies. Since the foot soldiers usually descended from the common people, their loss never really affected the ruler – his appreciation was firstly aimed at the nobility and the highest ranks.
Not having to agree upon with other confederates was one benefit of the commander’s warfare. Frederick took decisions all by himself and could therefore risk rather breakneck maneuvers. The king was also bent on fighting in person to the limit. Once his army was beaten he would ride against a battery of soldiers all by himself and call the legendary words to the ones left behind: “Dogs, do you want to live forever?” Marianne Gielen refers to this tactic of war.
Due to an, in Frederick’s opinion, irredeemable contract of association between ruler and state, he felt legitimized to warfare and state leadership. However, the contract ultimately also included that even its incapable ruler could not be dismissed. It wasn’t until the king of Prussia had drowned Bohemia, Moravia and Pomerania in rivers of blood during the “Seven Years’ War”, as the “first servant of the state” he was devoted to the reconstruction of the political system which beforehand he had worn out for the purpose of warfare. In consequence of his successful conduct of war Frederick by then had established Prussia as a European great power.
Even today not only military historians like to illustrate the progression of battles and wars with the help of corresponding wall charts and models of soldiers to demonstrate troop formations and army movements. Spare time strategists and cartographers also find a much obliged field of activities. There one could discover another point of reference in the paintings of Marianne Gielen. Apart from realistically painted snapshot methods, through her expressive pictures the artist vividly succeeds in portraying the fever charts of military massacres and the endless suffering of martial conflicts.