The Wild Army

Long before Urs Graf drew this in 1520, Alpine villages already feared the Wütendes Heer, the raging host that folk belief said rode the winter sky and left war or death in its wake. Graf, who had marched in real campaigns as a Swiss mercenary, gave that legend faces. His riders are war furies, a spectral column caught mid-charge rather than the neat ranks a commander would want. He knew what an army looked like on the move, and he lent the old omen the swagger and menace of the soldiers he had served beside. The sheet belongs to the Kupferstichkabinett in Basel, the prints and drawings collection that holds most of his surviving work on paper.