European

Lovis Corinth

Germany 1858-1925
Bacchant 75.0016

---

Corinth favored drypoint, a direct engraving technique in which the line, drawn on to a metal plate with a hard steel point, retains a characteristic fuzziness derived from the raised edge (burr) thrown up on either side of the groove. This technique gives Corinth's Bacchant (a young male devotee of Bacchus, the Greek god of wine) a soft, sketchy quality. Recognized as one of the leading exponents of impressionism in Germany in the first decade of the twentieth century, Corinth was drawn to the contemplation and subjective representation of nature. He also reacted strongly to the authoritarian stance of the German academic tradition and in 1902 moved to Berlin to join the Berlin Secession, a modernist group with varied interests and styles. After a stroke in 1911 partially paralyzed him, Corinth shifted by necessity to a much more loose and expressionist form of representation. His was drawn to allegorical subjects and voluptuous figures. In 1937, Hitler included his work in the Entarte Kunst (degenerate art) exhibition in Munich.

 

BACK TO COLLECTION