a grosz eclipse

 
There has been an eclipse or two lately — – 

al­ways a good ex­cuse to look at George Grosz’s Eclipse of the Sun (1926).

 

 

This ex­cep­tion­al­ly dense paint­ing is a harsh in­dict­ment of the po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic re­al­i­ties of Weimar Ger­many, par­tic­u­lar­ly the eco­nom­ic in­ter­ests dom­i­nat­ing the new regime.

At the cen­tre sits Pres­i­dent Paul von Hin­den­burg, recog­nis­able by his mous­tache, mil­i­tary uni­form and medals. 

He bares his teeth be­neath an iron­ic lau­rel wreath. In front of him are a blood­ied sword and fu­ner­ary cross, re­fer­ring to his role in the First World War and its hu­man cost.

Around the ta­ble sit four head­less financiers. 

A cor­pu­lent in­dus­tri­al­ist in a top hat, car­ry­ing minia­ture weapons and a train, whis­pers into Hindenburg’s ear – sug­gest­ing that those in pow­er are sim­ply act­ing on the in­ter­ests of cap­i­tal and the military.

Be­hind them, a city burns. 

A blind­fold­ed don­key, wear­ing the Ger­man ea­gle on its blink­ers, eats pa­pers from a trough while bal­anc­ing on a board tied to a skele­ton – in­ter­pret­ed as the Ger­man peo­ple, ac­cept­ing what­ev­er is put in front of them. 

To the right, a pris­on­er peers through bars be­neath one of the financiers.

And above the whole scene, the sun is eclipsed by a gi­ant dol­lar sign, re­fer­ring to Amer­i­can fi­nan­cial in­vest­ment in Ger­many af­ter the First World War.
 

 

 

—juli­ja svetlova

Flom­mist Juli­ja Svet­lo­va is an art his­to­ri­an, free­lance re­searcher and a founder of Neja’s Art Walks, a be­spoke provider of art and his­to­ry-re­lat­ed tours and ex­pe­ri­ences in Lon­don. Juli­ja pre­vi­ous­ly worked as a col­lec­tion re­search as­sis­tant at the Tate. Copy­right © 2026 Juli­ja Svet­lo­va. Im­ages via Hecksch­er Mu­se­um of Art; bot­tom im­age via Neue Gallery NY.

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