"In spring 1915, the recruit, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, was furloughed from his field artillery unit because he did not prove adequate to the demand of service. The diagnosis said: "because of affected lungs and feebleness." But the true cause was a profound physical and spiritual crisis, which brought him to a sanatorium in Königstein, Taunus. Artistic efforts at overcoming the trauma are revealed in works such as the 1915 'Self-Portrait as a Soldier'. The artist presents himself in the masquerade of a uniform: his face is a mask of isolation: a bleeding arm stump looms out of the right sleeve; the painter's active hand seems chopped off."