Description
This must be one of the most iconic and memorable images to be produced by the artist. The scene is highly symbolic in which the artist compares the act of marriage with an execution. Armed with a sword, a woman drives her bridegroom in front of her like a piece of livestock on the way to the slaughterhouse. As an ironic counterpart a billy goat, symbolizing the male sex drive, precedes him. The traditional love symbol of the white swan has turned its black, demonic opposite. In 1899 the artist born in Leipzig wrote to a friend “that the marriage drive was a contagious venereal disease”. The original painting, oil and gouache is in a private collection.
