The Barracks

  • OSSIP ZADKINE
    The Barracks

  • 40,5 x 31,4 cm
    Purchase by the City of Paris on the Zadkine-Prax bequest, 2005
  • 1917
  • Watercolour, gouache wash and brown ink over graphite on blank paper
  • Musée Zadkine

The Barracks is an exceptional piece, both through the poignant strength of its subject and its unique graphic treatment. Inspired by the spirit of Cubism, it radiates with the tension of the hatchings which traverse it. For Zadkine, who went through the Great War as a volunteer in the Russian ambulance corps, the Barracks is a way of reacting to war as much as it is a representation.