Laying out the March Dead

作品描述

Laying out the March Dead is an oil painting by the German artist Adolph Menzel, from 1848. It shows a crowd of people on Berlin's Gendarmenmarkt. The figures are attending the Coffin Laying of civilians who died during the Berlin March Revolution. Menzel attended the ceremony and during the event – or shortly afterward – he began work on the first studies for the painting. The lower left corner of the painting is not executed in oil paint, which is why most scholars consider it to be unfinished. Art historians disagree about the possible political or aesthetic motives of the painter for this. The painting belongs to the group of revolutionary paintings that were rarely created in Germany.