Maja (anger)

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Maja (Anders Zorn)
Maja
Anders Zorn , 1900
Oil on canvas
91.5 × 53.5 cm
National Gallery, Berlin

Maja is a painting by the Swedish painter Anders Zorn from 1900. The picture, painted in oil on canvas, is 91.5 cm high and 53.5 cm wide. Depicted is the 23-year-old Maja von Heijne, a woman from Stockholm's upper class. Zorn painted the realistic portrait of a young woman with abrushstroke typical of impressionism . Zorn also made an etching based on the oil painting. The painting belongs to the collection of the National Gallery in Berlin .

Image description

Anders Zorn has painted a portrait of a young woman knee-high in the painting Maja in close-up . In front of a dark background, she sits face to face with the viewer. Your legs are crossed, your arms stretched forward, your hands clasping your right knee above. She wears a sleeveless dark green evening dress, around her neck and shoulders she has put a fur boa , the ends of which reach down over her chest. Two animal heads can be clearly seen in the fur, sometimes referred to by authors as a fox and sometimes as a mink .

The face, inclined slightly to one side, shows a light incarnate like the cleavage and bare arms . The skin around the cheeks is slightly pink. Narrow eyebrows can be found above the dark, shining eyes. The mouth is open in a smile, the lips are a strong red tone. The blonde hair leaves the forehead free and seems to fall to one side in a disorderly manner. Except for the fur, the sitter wears no jewelry, neither on her hands, nor around her neck, nor on her ears. The picture was painted "in soft, modeling grazing light", the right half of the face is partially in the shadow area. At the bottom left there is the signature and date of the red lettering "Zorn 1900". In large parts of the picture a fleeting brushstroke can clearly be seen, as it is typical for the painters of impressionism. In contrast, the author Christiane Meixner recognized the influence of symbolism in the motif of a fun-loving “ femme fatale ” .

Various authors have praised the successful portrayal of the young woman and also highlighted her positive charisma. In 1910, in his appreciation of the picture, Carl G. Laurin spoke of a typical “healthy and happy Swede” and underlined the natural demeanor of those portrayed. The German art critic Karl Scheffler commented on the painting Maja in 1912 and praised Anders Zorn as “a man of many degrees”. In 1980 Gerhard R. Meyer and Gerhard Murza saw the portrait of a “blooming young woman” as a “particularly successful portrait” and praised the quality of the painting as an example of Zorn's “excellent portrait painting”. In 2012, Cecilia Lengefeld emphasized that Zorns Maja radiated “vital friends of life”. Angelika Wesenberg stated in 2017 that the sitter was painted “full of sparkling liveliness” and that anger had captured “the friendly, open nature” of Maja .

A portrait of a woman from the upper class

Anders Zorn: Maja , etching

In the painting Maja , Zorn portrayed the 22-year-old Swede Maja (actually Maria) von Heijne. She came from a noble family and was born in Stockholm in 1877. Overall, little is known about their lives. She married the wealthy entrepreneur Knut Fredrik Ljunglöf junior in 1902. This marriage resulted in two children. Maja Ljunglöf died in 1910 at the age of 32.

Zorn started the painting on a visit to Stockholm in 1900 and later completed it at his residence in Mora . The picture was not a commissioned work, but arose out of Zorn's fascination for the sitter. He was attracted to "that beautiful woman who excited my male senses," as he noted in his autobiographical notes. After the painting, Zorn created an etching, whereby the prints made from it show the motif reversed. For the authors Gerhard R. Meyer and Gerhard Murza this graphic is a "splendid example of the perfect art of etching by Anders Zorn".

Women are a recurring motif in all of Anders Zorn's work. He painted them as bathing nymphs , as peasant women, as old women, as everyday types and as sophisticated ladies. So he created pictures from his immediate surroundings such as the portrait of Emma Zorn, reading from 1887 . Here he shows his wife as interested in daily events. In the portrait of Margit from 1891, she portrayed a young woman from his native Dalarna . The natural pose of the sitter is later found in another form in the portrait of Maja . Since the 1890s, Zorn was an internationally sought-after portrait painter. In 1893 he traveled to Chicago for the World's Columbian Exposition , where he painted the portrait of the influential millionaire wife Bertha Honoré Palmer . Further commissions from an affluent public followed, for example the portrait of the first wife Frances Cleveland from 1899 . In Sweden, the portrait of Queen Sophia, created in 1909, was one of his important portraits. Typical of Zorn's portraits from the upper class is a "dramatic lighting", which was rather unusual for this type of portrait with other painters.

  • Anders Zorn: Emma Zorn, reading , 1887

  • Anders Zorn: Margit , 1891

  • Anders Zorn: Mrs. Potter Palmer , 1893

  • Anders Zorn: Frances Folsom Cleveland , 1899

  • Anders Zorn: Queen Sophia , 1909

Provenance

Shortly after its completion in the spring of 1900, Zorn sent the painting Maja to the second exhibition of the Berlin Secession , in which foreign artists could take part for the first time. Zorn was a recognized artist in Berlin and had already sold the painting Summer Evening to the National Gallery in 1894 . Max Liebermann , who was a friend of the painter , was very committed to Zorns Maja and informed the Dresden museum director Max Lehrs that the picture was for sale. In his letter to Lehrs, Liebermann said: “I consider this portrait to be one of the most beautiful that he has ever painted. And so splendid as an object. ”However, this purchase did not take place. Instead, the Berlin banker Felix Koenigs bought the painting. After Koenigs died a few months later, the heirs gave his collection of contemporary art, including Zorn's Maja , as a gift to the National Gallery in Berlin in 1901 .

literature

  • Anna-Carola Krauße (ed.): The Swedish impressionist Anders Zorn . Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2012, ISBN 978-3-86568-741-8 .
  • Carl G. Laurin: Folklynnen . Norstedt & Söners, Stockholm 1920.
  • Gerhard R. Meyer, Gerhard Murza: Berlin, Museum Island . Seemann, Leipzig 1980.
  • Brigitta Sandström (Ed.): Anders Zorn: Självbiografiska anteckningar . Zornsamlingarna, Mora 2004, ISBN 91-974329-2-X .
  • Karl Scheffler : The National Gallery in Berlin, a critical leader . Cassirer, Berlin 1912.
  • Angelika Wesenberg : Berlin Impressionism: Works of the Berlin Secession from the National Gallery . Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-88609-660-2 .
  • Angelika Wesenberg (ed.): Painting in the 19th century: the collection of the National Gallery . Vol. 2, L – Z, Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2017, ISBN 978-3-7319-0458-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Angelika Wesenberg: Painting in the 19th century: the collection of the National Gallery , p. 928.
  2. ^ Gerhard R. Meyer, Gerhard Murza: Berlin, Museum Island , p. 268.
  3. ↑ As fox boa fur is called in Gerhard R. Meyer, Gerhard Murza: Berlin, Museum Island , S. 268; Angelika Wesenberg speaks of a fox lying over her shoulder in Angelika Wesenberg: Painting in the 19th century: the collection of the Nationalgalerie , p. 928.
  4. ↑ Christiane Meixner recognized two mink skins in Christiane Meixner in the painting: Faces of the Big City , article in the Tagesspiegel of March 30, 2012.
  5. ↑ Angelika Wesenberg: Painting in the 19th century: the collection of the National Gallery , p. 928.
  6. ↑ Angelika Wesenberg: Berlin Impressionism: Works of the Berlin Secession from the National Gallery , p. 100.
  7. ↑ Christiane Meixner: Faces of the Big City , article in Der Tagesspiegel from March 30, 2012.
  8. ↑ In the original "friska och glada i den kvinnliga svenskheten" in Carl G. Laurin: Folklynnen , p. 43.
  9. ^ Karl Scheffler: The National Gallery in Berlin, a critical guide , p. 252.
  10. ^ Gerhard R. Meyer, Gerhard Murza: Berlin, Museum Island , p. 268.
  11. ↑ Cecilia Lengefeld: Anders Zorn and Max Liebermann in Anna-Carola Krauße: The Swedish Impressionist Anders Zorn , p. 138.
  12. ↑ Angelika Wesenberg: Painting in the 19th century: the collection of the National Gallery , p. 928.
  13. ↑ Detailed information on the von Heinen family in the Swedish directory www.adelsvapen.com .
  14. ↑ Angelika Wesenberg: Painting in the 19th century: the collection of the National Gallery , p. 928.
  15. ↑ Original quotation in Brigitta Sandström: Andres Zorn: Självbiografiska anteckningar p. 167, German translation in Cecilia Lengefeld: Anders Zorn and Max Liebermann in Anna-Carola Krauße: The Swedish impressionist Anders Zorn , p. 138.
  16. ^ Gerhard R. Meyer, Gerhard Murza: Berlin, Museum Island , p. 268.
  17. ↑ Janina Nentwig: Zorn, painter of women in Anna-Carola Krauße: The Swedish impressionist Anders Zorn , p. 115.
  18. ↑ Janina Nentwig: Zorn, painter of women in Anna-Carola Krauße: The Swedish impressionist Anders Zorn , p. 116.
  19. ↑ Christiane Meixner: Faces of the Big City , article in Der Tagesspiegel from March 30, 2012.
  20. ↑ Angelika Wesenberg: Painting in the 19th century: the collection of the National Gallery , p. 928.
  21. ↑ Angelika Wesenberg: Painting in the 19th century: the collection of the National Gallery , p. 928.
  22. ^ Quote from Cecilia Lengefeld: Anders Zorn and Max Liebermann in Anna-Carola Krauße: The Swedish Impressionist Anders Zorn , p. 138.
  23. ↑ Angelika Wesenberg: Painting in the 19th century: the collection of the National Gallery , p. 928.