The subject of this painting is an episode from the play Götz von Berlichingen (1773), by the German author Johann Wolfgang Goethe. Weisslingen has been taken prisoner by the soldiers of the heroic knight Götz, and despite the violence of the combat, we see that the protagonist (in yellow) is not injured. The three rearing horses add dramatic vitality, and they are an artist’s inspiration that would be impossible to show on the stage of a theater.
