The theme of the Last Judgement, widely represented by a number of avant-garde artists before the outbreak of the War, returned in the first months of the combat as a subject that could be used to offer an allegory of the conflict. Two outstanding examples are Natalia Goncharova’s album of lithographs Mystic Images of War, and Ernst Barlach’s sculpture The Avenger. In both cases we find a clear intent to update medieval imagery and iconography. Goncharova and Barlach’s use of primitive modes have different origins but here their intentions coincide with regard to the visual idiom. Both also endow the depiction of war with an eschatological character.
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