From the cycle "Emperor Maximilian and the arts"
100 x 140 cm (H x W)
 
Emperor Maximilian was often called the "last knight" because of his magnificent tournaments. But he was also the "father of the Landsknechte," i.e., he no longer led his campaigns with noble cavalry troops, but above all with highly modern massed armies that were tactically trained and equipped with guns. Maximilian was thus one of those rulers who founded the rise of the early modern territorial state.
 
The image shows in the background a burning city in the Middle Ages. In front on the battlefield, stacked and piled up, a multitude of dead knights who met their end in battle by the emperor's lansquenets. Maximilian had the habit of spending the night after a victorious battle, among the dead fallen knights. Imagine how he appears in the picture in a few moments. On his horse, in his golden armor, slowly riding through the dead bodies to rest, in the midst of the fallen.