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Moessel painted this the year that Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. This painting seems to satirize and ridicule the Nazis. The biblical giant, Goliath, is pictured on the left wielding a large sword adorned with the Nazi-appropriated swastika symbol. Behind him are caricatures of his followers with proud expressions. David stands before him, proud and smug, before the infamous battle. Behind David is a wall decorated with Jewish symbolism and people prepared to fight against the grim odds. A hooded figure looms behind the crowd, perhaps symbolizing death.
With Moessel’s sometimes contradictory beliefs, it is difficult to say whether or not his being German during the sociopolitical landscape of World War II left him in favor of the Nazi Party. Although this painting seems to be a hopeful depiction of resilience and triumph over a more physically powerful figure, many of his other political paintings are more difficult to decipher. Without the context of possible irony or social commentary, many of his other works come off as blatantly antisemitic. His problematic caricatures of large-nosed characters with poles for bodies, crossed eyes, and large badges of the Star of David make it unclear if he was making a social commentary on the dehumanizing way the Nazis viewed Jewish people or if he himself saw them that way.Label Type
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Julius Moessel was born in 1871 in Fürth, located in the Bavaria region of Germany. He went on to study at the Munich Academy and, by the 1900s, cemented himself as one of the most venerated architectural painters and muralists in Germany. His detailed, ornamental work, including intricate scrollwork frescoes and botanical decoration, was in demand by leading German architects. Perhaps most famously, he was commissioned to paint the jury room of the Nuremberg Palace of Justice, where many of the World War II war crime trials later took place.
Once at the precipice of wealth, prosperity, and high regard in his field, World War I left Moessel desperate for work as Germany's economy deteriorated, greatly impacting his commissions, career, and prestige. When he could no longer support himself, let alone maintain his comfortable lifestyle, he moved to Chicago where he began a new career as an easel painter. Despite his emigré status, he quickly rose to acclaim again, exhibiting in sixty exhibitions in New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Michigan. As his reputation for being the idiosyncratic character of the Chicago art scene grew, Moessel continued to break free of the constraints that tethered him to architectural painting— instead, he would shock contemporaries and critics with the pluralist nature of his work.
Moessel painted a wide array of subjects ranging from horrific Boschian scenes of Hell and suffering, to botanical paintings of animals peacefully interacting, to Surreal or Symbolist works of politics and religion. Despite the extremity and incongruity of his work, it captivated one of Chicago's most esteemed art critics, C.J. Bulliet, who wrote for the Daily News and Art Digest. Bulliet was adamant in his endearment to Moessel’s work, writing that “Max Ernst and Salvador Dalí might sit profitably at his feet for a few hours to learn the secret of the awe and wonder” Moessel so easily evoked in viewers of his work. Bulliet even went so far as to dub him “one of the living masters of the world.”
Even during periods of popularity, Moessel rarely sold his paintings. As such, hundreds of his works sat collecting dust in his studio instead of being safely housed in museums, galleries, and private collections. Being a confrontational and callous man with divisive opinions and a fiery temperament, he would often dissolve relationships with curators and patrons and shirk opportunities that could have potentially brought him the success he knew in Germany. With dwindling business relationships and publicity, Moessel descended into anonymity and died in poverty, largely forgotten, even in the historical archives and memories of Chicago and Fürth, where his reputation would not adhere itself to history.