Death for an Idea (Der Tod für die Idee) (plate, [p. 93]) from Zeit-Echo. Ein Kriegs-Tagebuch der Künstler vol. 1, no. 7 (Jan 1915)

Death for an Idea (Der Tod für die Idee) (plate, [p. 93]) from Zeit-Echo. Ein Kriegs-Tagebuch der Künstler vol. 1, no. 7 (Jan 1915) is a powerful lithograph created by Paul Klee during the crucial first year of the First World War. Produced in 1915, this work was specifically published in the influential German periodical Zeit-Echo, an artists' war diary that offered a forum for contemporary cultural responses to the massive European conflict. Klee’s participation in this publication underscores his engagement with the intellectual and emotional toll of the era.

The work is executed using the print medium, allowing Klee to explore stark contrasts and minimal line work. Unlike his contemporaneous watercolor experiments, which often utilized developing color theory, Death for an Idea employs a decisive black-and-white visual economy suitable for the gravity of its subject matter. The title itself suggests a profound meditation on sacrifice, ideology, and the human cost of war, reflecting the grim reality facing the German population in 1915.

Stylistically, the lithograph embodies Klee's transition toward abstraction. The figures, if present, are reduced to simplified geometric and linear elements, concentrating on form and concept rather than narrative detail. This reductionism foreshadows the more complex abstract vocabulary Klee would develop throughout his subsequent career at the Bauhaus. As a key example of the artistic response to wartime propaganda and tragedy, the print is valuable both as a historical document and a study in early modern abstraction.

This important lithograph, representing a significant piece of German artistic history, is permanently housed in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), where it remains available for scholarly research into Klee’s extensive oeuvre.