Spirit-Warrior

Mediums: bronze.
Location: The church of St. Nicholas in Kiel (Germany).

When E. Barlach achieved certain recognition, he began to receive orders for sculptures from German cities. The spirit-warrior made for the church of the city of Kiel was the first such monument. An angel stands with two legs on the defeated chimera, and this, despite military attributes, is not about military victories on the battlefield (the artist was a staunch pacifist) but about the triumph of the powers of goodness and reason over anger and darkness. The work fits the general aesthetics of the Gothic temple in the manner of performing; Barlach called his works on this theme “Gothic realism”. Initially, the statue stood in the Church of the Holy Spirit, but it was destroyed by the war; the Spirit-Warrior was transferred to the tower of St. Nicholas Church in 1954.