Head of a Thinker (with Hand)

myminifactory

With its imposing forehead, deeply set eyes, unyielding expression, and single clenched fist, this portrait bust by German Expressionist sculptor Wilhelm Lehmbruck embodies the tortured angst of one consumed by thought. Its elongated proportions, brutally severed limbs, and overarching sense of profound despondency convey the anxiety and desperation that gripped many during the First World War and its aftermath, an era about which Lehmbruck had firsthand knowledge as a nurse in a German military hospital. Whether a haunting tribute to the unimaginable suffering he witnessed there or a personal allusion to his own despair (he took his life just one year after completing this sculpture) Head of a Thinker stands less as a likeness of a specific subject than as a stark reflection of the anguish felt by countless individuals in the wake of the first mechanized war.