In 1909, when Lovis Corinth was fifty-one, he had painted his wife Charlotte and their two young children, as they were enjoying everything that Berlin had to offer the successful artist. He had worked hard, and by the end of 1911 had painted more than three hundred substantial works in oils.

He seized this moment during The Model’s Break in 1909 to capture a more informal and natural full-length portrait of her. This is a not uncommon ruse resulting in some fine paintings by others, and works well for Corinth. This was exhibited in the 1913 exhibition of the Berlin Secession.

He painted the occasional urban landscape of the city too, such as this wintry Ice Rink in the Berlin Tiergarten (1909), where Berliners are skating on one of the frozen lakes in the park’s zoo.

Corinth continued to explore Christ’s Passion in real terms, in his Christ Carrying the Cross (1909). Although this contains most of the usual elements seen in traditional depictions, his language is contemporary, almost secular. Two men, one of them apparently African, are helping Christ bear his exhausting load, while a couple of soldiers are whipping him on and threatening him with their spears. A third soldier is controlling the crowd at the upper left, and behind is a mounted soldier and one of the disciples.

Homeric Laughter (1909) is one of Corinth’s more complex paintings of classical myth. He provides a good clue as to its interpretation in the inscription, which rendered from the original into English reads:
unquenchable laughter arose among the blessed gods as they saw the craft of wise Hephaestus
together with the citation of Homer’s Odyssey book 8 line 326.

This refers to a section in which Odysseus is being entertained by King Alcinous, after meeting Nausicaä on the island of the Phaeacians. To cheer Odysseus up, the bard Demodocus tells a tale of the illicit love affair between Ares/Mars (god of war) and Aphrodite/Venus (goddess of love), that has featured extensively in art.

One day Hephaistos/Vulcan catches the couple making love in his marriage bed, and throws a fine but unbreakable net over them. Hephaistos then summons the other gods, who come and roar with laughter at the ensnared couple.

In this first version, Corinth shows Aphrodite recumbent on the bed, shielding her eyes from the crowd around her. Ares is struggling in frustration with the net securing the couple. Hephaistos, clad in black with his tools slung around his waist, is talking to Poseidon (wearing a crown) with Dionysos/Bacchus behind him (clutching a champagne glass). At the right edge is Hermes/Mercury, with his winged helmet. Sundry putti are playing with Ares’ armour, and an arc of them adorns the sky.

Corinth also painted a second version, which he etched in 1920 to make prints.

Morning Sun (1910) is a wonderfully painterly oil sketch of Charlotte enjoying the sunshine in bed.

Contrasting with that is this more formal Portrait of Charlotte Corinth in a Brown Blouse from 1910.

Earlier in his career, Corinth doesn’t appear to have painted many floral or other still lifes, but after 1900 he seems to have been more attracted to them. Roses (1910) strikes a perfect balance between botanical detail in their blooms, and looseness in the foliage and background.

Over these years, Corinth and his family travelled, here to a Terrace in Klobenstein, The Tirol (1910). Klobenstein or Collalbo is a mountain resort at an altitude of just over 1,000 metres in the South Tirol, in Italy. This painting shows the Hamburg businessman and art collector Henry B Simms (1861-1922) on holiday there during the summer. Simms was a keen collector of Corinth’s work, and later also became an early purchaser of Picasso’s works. The children shown are almost certainly his, and Corinth painted a more formal portrait of him in the same year.

Woman with a Fishtank (1911) shows Charlotte in their flat on Klopstockstraße in Berlin. The aquarium, full of goldfish, is surrounded by quite a jungle of indoor plants, her little corner of vegetation within their city flat. According to her later memoirs, Corinth took just four days to complete this painting.

Corinth’s celebration of his fifty-third birthday on 21st July was more restrained than his fiftieth, but he seems to have enjoyed painting a Large Still Life with Figure (1911), featuring Charlotte in a surprising outfit. They must have enjoyed quite a banquet afterwards, judging by the dead game on the table.

Carl Hagenbeck in his Zoo (1911) is one of his more unusual portraits, painted not of the splendid walrus, but of Carl Hagenbeck (1844-1913), a merchant of wild animals. Hagenbeck was the originator of the modern zoo with its ‘open’ and naturalistic enclosures, and established the most successful private zoo in Germany at Stellingen just outside Hamburg. He died a couple of years after this portrait, when he was bitten by one of his snakes.

At this time Corinth also seems to have done a good trade in more conventional portraits, such as this Portrait of Frau Kaumann (1911) in richly dappled light.

Then in December 1911, Corinth suffered a major stroke: his left side, both arm and leg, were paralysed. Corinth had painted his entire professional career with his left hand, and was only 53.

References

Wikipedia.

Lemoine S et al. (2008) Lovis Corinth, Musée d’Orsay & RMN. ISBN 978 2 711 85400 4. (In French.)
Czymmek G et al. (2010) German Impressionist Landscape Painting, Liebermann-Corinth-Slevogt, Arnoldsche. ISBN 978 3 89790 321 0.

Lovis Corinth’s art and career reached their peak once he had joined the Berlin Secession, and in the Spring of 1903 had married his former student Charlotte Berend. Although their early family and social life had reduced the number of paintings he produced, their quality remained consistently high, and he was living up to his reputation as ‘the painter of flesh’.

The Childhood of Zeus (1905-6) shows Zeus, senior god in the Greek pantheon, as a young boy at its centre. According to various myths, he was the son of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. Cronus swallowed his other children, so to save Zeus from the same fate, Rhea gave birth to him in Crete, and handed Cronus a rock disguised as a baby, which he promptly swallowed.

Rhea then hid Zeus in a cave, where he was raised by one or more of a long list of surrogates, including Gaia, a goat, a nymph, and others, several of which appear in this raucous painting. Corinth adds Dionysus to provide an abundant supply of nourishing grapes, and lend a little ironic humour.

In 1906, he took his wife Charlotte to his home village of Tapiau and the city of Königsberg where he had started his training and career, and the following year they travelled to Florence, where he copied frescos using pastels.

Following his earlier paintings of the Deposition, Corinth came even closer to harsh reality in The Great Martyrdom from 1907. He takes the example of an ordinary man being crucified, then secularises the image and places it in a vivid context, making clear the vicious inhumanity of crucifixion.

In The Capture of Samson (1907), Corinth revisited another of his favourite subjects, whom he had painted in 1893 in company with Delila, and again in 1899 in a related scene of his capture. Here, with some simple props including an eclectic and anachronistic range of headgear, he shows the chaotic brawl that resulted in Samson’s bondage. Corinth places himself as one of Samson’s captors in the left foreground, and Delila kneels, naked, at the top centre.

From 1907, he led formal teaching sessions in life classes in Berlin.

To celebrate his fiftieth birthday in 1908, Corinth painted several canvases, including Nakedness reflecting his fleshly reputation. This was completed over a few days at the end of March that year, and the following month was delivered to the Secession’s exhibition, where it was well received.

Bacchante Couple (1908) is another self-portrait with Charlotte, with the couple apparently enjoying their wild lifestyle at the time. This may have been another birthday celebration.

Female Half-Nude by a Window (1908) is one of the popular sub-genre of ‘woman at the window’ scenes, and a less roughly hewn nude shown in delicate lighting.

Corinth’s second painting of The Temptation of St Anthony after Gustave Flaubert from 1908, shown below, demonstrates how his style had changed over a period of just a decade, compared with his first painting (above) from 1897 when he was in Munich.

This second version is based on Flaubert’s account La Tentation de Saint-Antoine, and focusses on a scene in which the Queen of Sheba appears in the saint’s visions. Shown with her is a train consisting of an elephant, camels, and naked women riding piebald horses. This new Saint Anthony is far younger, and surrounded by this outlandish circus of people and animals. In his left hand he holds a heavy chain, and there’s a skull in his right hand.

According to later recollections of the artist’s son Thomas, Corinth painted this from professional models in his studio on Berlin’s Handelstraße. Charlotte modelled only for the arm and hand of the Queen of Sheba. Together with Nakedness, this must have been completed by the end of March 1908, and was shown at the Secession’s exhibition from April to June. It was also among Corinth’s works representing Germany at the thirteenth Venice Biennale in 1922, and was the basis for an etching he made in 1919.

Self-portrait, Painting shows the artist at work in 1909 when he was 51. He has signed his name using Greek letters, and on the right side has inscribed aetatis suae LI, meaning his age 51.

Another of his most popular paintings from this period is his group portrait of The Artist and his Family (1909). All dressed up for what may have been intended to be a more formal group portrait, Charlotte sits calmly cradling daughter Wilhelmine, then just five months old, as the artist seems to be struggling to paint them. Their son Thomas, aged five years, stands on a desk so he can rest his hand on mother’s shoulder. I suspect this was aided by a photograph.

References

Wikipedia.

Lemoine S et al. (2008) Lovis Corinth, Musée d’Orsay & RMN. ISBN 978 2 711 85400 4. (In French.)
Czymmek G et al. (2010) German Impressionist Landscape Painting, Liebermann-Corinth-Slevogt, Arnoldsche. ISBN 978 3 89790 321 0.