A century ago today, on 17 July 1925, the great German artist Lovis Corinth died. To complete this series commemorating his career and art, I show a selection of the best of his narrative paintings. Some modern art historians claim that narrative painting died during the nineteenth century, but that certainly didn’t apply to Corinth.

Corinth’s first really successful narrative paintings were the two that he made in 1890, showing the Old Testament story of Susanna and the Elders, a subject he returned to as late as 1923. Identical in their composition, they have an unusual setting, as this scene of the two elders acting as voyeurs is more commonly shown in Susanna’s garden, or even woodland, as described in the original story.

Towards the end of his time in Munich, Corinth painted this first version of another famous story, this time the temptations that Saint Anthony was reported to have undergone. This is more typical of Corinth’s mature work, with many figures crammed into the composition in a raucous and highly expressive human circus. Although painterly in parts, he is careful to depict fine detail in the joint of meat being held by Saint Anthony, and the saint’s amazing face.

Corinth’s narrative paintings reached their peak at the time that he moved to Berlin, in this second version of Salome. Not only was it highly influential on a wide range of other artists and their arts, but its use of gaze is remarkably subtle and its success based on being implicit rather than explicit.

Corinth wasn’t as restrained when he tackled the story from Homer’s Odyssey of Ulysses Fighting the Beggar. He packs a crowd in, gives every one of them a unique and intriguing facial expression, then pits Ulysses against the beggar in almost comic combat. Note too how his figures are becoming looser.

If Corinth’s first Temptation of Saint Anthony showed a human circus, the rest of the animals and performers came for this his second. Those figures are also becoming significantly more painterly, and the Queen of Sheba has similarities with his earlier figure of Salome.

Of all his narrative paintings, his Homeric Laughter must be the most complex. It refers to a story within the story of Homer’s Odyssey, told by the bard Demodocus to cheer Odysseus up when he is being entertained by King Alcinous on the island of the Phaeacians. It’s another raucous spectacle, in which we join the other gods in seeing Mars and Venus caught red-faced making love.

Corinth returned to narrative after his stroke, painting The Blinded Samson with its obvious autobiographical references. Samson’s body is painted more roughly, although the artist has taken care to give form to the drops of blood running down Samson’s cheeks. This version of Samson contrasts with his others in showing the man alone.

Less than two years after his stroke, Corinth returned with another elaborate and wild painting, this time depicting the story of Ariadne on Naxos. This is another highlight of Corinth’s career, particularly as it condenses several different moments in time into its single image, using multiplex narrative; that might have been fairly commonplace during the Renaissance, but was exceptional for the early twentieth century. It works wonderfully.

Late during the First World War, Corinth moved on from crowded and vivacious narrative paintings, and became more autobiographical again. The huge and stark figure of Cain heaping rocks onto the body of his brother Abel fits with Corinth’s growing horror and despair as the war drew on.

Corinth’s last painting of Susanna and the Elders is a remarkable contrast with his first, from over thirty years earlier. He still avoids a pastoral or garden setting, and his figures are now fading forms in patches of colour and texture.

For what must have been his last great narrative painting, Corinth looked to the events leading up to the fall of Troy, in particular The Trojan Horse. The great walls and towers of the city appear as a mirage, their forms indistinct from the dawn sky. Although roughly painted using coarse marks, the soldiers and the horse itself are more distinct in the foreground.

Corinth’s style evolved through his career, but he also continued to paint stories right up to the last. Together, they form one of the most sustained and brilliant series of narrative paintings of any artist since Rembrandt.

References

Wikipedia.

Lemoine S et al. (2008) Lovis Corinth, Musée d’Orsay & RMN. ISBN 978 2 711 85400 4. (In French.)

From the start of his career, Lovis Corinth was a great admirer of the paintings of Rembrandt, and like him he painted a series of self-portraits reflecting changes in his life. This penultimate article in the series to commemorate his death a century ago looks at a selection of those. These should cast light on whether his style changed dramatically over the course of his career, and what effects his stroke at the end of 1911 may have had on that style.

His earliest self-portrait is typical of his initial detailed realist style, although he didn’t show the meticulous detail in his hair or beard, for instance, that was more popular earlier in the nineteenth century.

By his later years in Munich, the skin of his face has become more painterly, and non-flesh surfaces such as his shirt and the landscape background, as well as the skull, have obviously visible brushstrokes. A simple self-portrait was also not enough: he posed beside a skeleton, drawing the comparison between his living, fleshy face, and the fleshless skull next to it.

His move from Munich, where he already had a reputation for drinking and social life, to Berlin brought him love and inspiration from his fiancée then wife Charlotte Berend, but intensified his work, social life, and drinking. His depiction of flesh has a rougher facture, and most of the passages in this work appear to have been sketched in quickly.

These changes are even more evident in this wild and ribald double portrait with his wife, posing appropriately as Bacchantes. His chest and left arm now have stark dark brushstrokes giving the flesh a texture rather than form.

Before his stroke, and the outbreak of the First World War, he posed as the standard-bearer to a mediaeval knight, his head held high with pride for Prussia. The flesh of his face now appears rough-hewn, particularly over surfaces that would normally be shown smooth and blended, such as the forehead. Bright patches on the suit of armour are shown with coarse daubs of white paint.

After his stroke, and just as the First World War was about to start, there has been little roughening in his facture. His face, though, looks more worried, and his previous pride appears to have been quashed.

By the end of the war, when he was 60, he had aged markedly, with receding hair and gaunt cheeks. Although his face and hand are as sketchy as before, his hair and left ear have been rendered more roughly still.

When he was out in the country sun at the family’s chalet by Walchensee, he painted his clothing and the landscape extremely roughly. He looks his years, but if anything appears more healthy and relaxed than when he was confined to Berlin.

His last self-portrait shows age catching up with him, and has even rougher facture. His forehead is now a field of daubs of different colours, applied coarsely. His hair consists of gestural marks seemingly made in haste.

Although there’s a clear trend towards a rough facture over the years, I can’t see any particular watershed either following his stroke or at another time that suggests sudden change. Can you?

References

Wikipedia.

Lemoine S et al. (2008) Lovis Corinth, Musée d’Orsay & RMN. ISBN 978 2 711 85400 4. (In French.)