The Fight on the Bridge 1882 - 1885

Arnold Böcklin painted “The Fight on the Bridge” sometime in the late 19th century. The image depicts two knights jousting on horseback in a medieval setting. This was a period when European culture was obsessed with images of the medieval past. The painting reflects a nostalgia for a simpler time, before industrialization, and its social upheavals. Böcklin's choice of subject suggests a longing for the values associated with chivalry and honor, but set against this is the darker implication of violence. Böcklin was Swiss, but he spent much of his career in Germany, and this painting touches on cultural anxieties within the newly unified German empire. Was this a unified state built on the honorable values of the past, or on brute force? To understand the image better, we can turn to popular literature, political speeches, and art criticism from the period. This will help us place Böcklin’s painting in its proper context. It reminds us that art doesn't exist in a vacuum, but reflects the social and institutional forces of its time.