Medea (Anselm Feuerbach)
|
| Medea |
|---|
| Anselm Feuerbach , 1870 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 198.0 x 395.5 cm |
| New Pinakothek , Munich |
Medea or Medea's farewell or Medea by the sea is the title of a neoclassical painting by the painter Anselm Feuerbach from 1870. It depicts Medea from Greek mythology who murdered her two children to take revenge on her unfaithful husband Jason ; where the murder is not depicted, but the scene shortly before it. Feuerbach was living in Rome at that time in order to train himself on classical-antique sculptures and to continue artistically his passion, the work of his father, the archaeologist Joseph Anselm Feuerbach .
History, description and interpretation
The painting has the landscape format with the dimensions 198 × 395 cm and is executed in the technique of oil on canvas . In 1879, King Ludwig II of Bavaria acquired it directly from the artist at the international art exhibition in the Munich Glass Palace . In 1932 it came into the administration of the Wittelsbach Compensation Fund . Today the painting is part of the collection of the New Pinakothek in Munich .
As part of a picture cycle for the Medeensage , it was initially intended for Count Adolf Friedrich von Schack under the title “Medea by the Sea” . In addition to numerous drafts and sketches, this cycle also includes two completed paintings. One painting shows Medea with a dagger just before the crime, and the last one is depicted in mourning or remorse at the cinder urn on whose relief the murder of her children is depicted.
The Medea with the dagger from 1870/1871 is in the Mannheim Kunsthalle ; the painting Medea an der Urn from 1873 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. In the Berlin National Gallery there was a version similar to the one described here from the Munich Pinakothek, entitled Medea Prepared for Escape , which was stored in the Flakturm Zoo during World War II and has been missing since 1945.
Feuerbach was also inspired for the picture by the play Medée by Ernest Legouvé , in which the then internationally known actress Adelaide Ristori played Medea, and exactly the same hairstyle, held together by a ribbon or a pearl necklace, as in this picture in the performances of Piece, wore. Feuerbach's Italian friend Lucia Brunacci was the model for Medea after his lover Anna Risi left him for a rich Englishman, because he was permanently in financial need due to fewer sales of his pictures. With her classic profile and full black hair, she reminded him of Anna and from then on she was the ideal embodiment of the motif of the mythical ancient figure for the artist. Feuerbach, like the painter Eugène Delacroix with his picture of a wild Medea (as well as many other artists, playwrights and writers) was fascinated by the subject of this figure. In a letter from 1869 he describes his thoughts on how to carry out the picture:
“Medea before the deed, Medea after the deed, Medea on the run on the nocturnal beach, Medea as a loving mother, as a murderous fury , in sleep, in wakefulness, in remorse and suffering! This is again an object that I have, so to speak, dogged myself into, from which I cannot get away. "
The picture shows the scene in which Medea flees Corinth to go to Athens after Jason rejected her and it was clear that the children belong to the father. The mother is represented as an idealized monumental figure that towers above all other figures. She looks tenderly at her two sons, but onlookers know that the murder is about to happen. A horse's skull lies in the sand as a symbol of death, and a completely veiled female figure, perhaps a servant, hides her face from what is to come. The monumental Medea finds its counterbalance in the group of sailors who join forces to push the sailboat into the water. The overcast sky, the rocky bluff in the background and the unreal lighting from Medea's right shoulder contribute to the gloomy atmosphere. Feuerbach does not depict the crime. He writes about it: A history picture should, however, represent a life in a situation, it should point forwards and backwards and be based in and on itself for all eternity. (from Henriette Feuerbach: A Legacy by Anselm Feuerbach , Leipzig 1920, Chapter 20).
The contemporary critics were in part disagreed with Feuerbach's work, at that time realism and impressionism were modern and internationally recognized. But the wealthy, well-educated, but intellectually underutilized German citizens of the Wilhelmine era , when they no longer had to work physically and were only left with the house, the salons and other culture, recognized themselves in this Medea , what Henrik Ibsen did in his Theater play Nora or Ein Puppenheim (1879) and Theodor Fontane with his novel Effi Briest (1895) had described.
| painting | description |
|---|---|
 |
Medea's Farewell , 1867, 120 × 265 cm, Berlin National Gallery, lost in 1945.
It was based on a preliminary study showing a rocky coastal landscape. In the left half of the picture, Medea is standing on the bank with her two children. The younger child carries her in her arms, the older one holds her by the hand. Next to it is a group of helmsmen pushing a boat into the sea. The wet nurse sits a little further away from these figures and hides her face in her hands. |
 |
Medea with the dagger 1870/71, 192 × 127 cm, Kunsthalle Mannheim.
In this painting the figure of the seated Medea, turned to the right, fills the picture almost entirely. She has her head lowered slightly in the crook of the left arm, with the hand on her head; the right arm hangs down. Underneath, as if it had slipped from her limp hand, lies a dagger in the folds of the red fabric that surrounds the entire figure. With these allegorical attributes, Medea appears as the personification of melancholy . Feuerbach writes to his beloved stepmother Henriette about this picture: I designed a Medea on my own after the deed, moonlight very shocking. |
 |
Medea at the urn 1873, 192 × 127.5 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
As in the picture Medea with the dagger , the figure of Medea fills the picture again, but this time she sits facing to the left in a similar pose. She rests her head on her right wrist and her left arm hangs down. Behind her you can see an urn on a pedestal , which is decorated with a scene of the killing of her children. |
Exhibitions (selection)
- 1870: Exhibition in Karlsruhe
- 1879: International art exhibition in the Glaspalast in Munich
literature
- Anselm Friedrich Feuerbach, Henriette Feuerbach: A Legacy. Meyer & Jessen, Berlin 1911, OCLC 3572916 , pp. 175/77. (Including letters)
- Ludwig Justi : Anselm Feuerbach: Medea. (Reprint from the guide through the National Gallery) Julius Bard, Berlin 1921, OCLC 86034102 (relates to the painting that was lost in 1945).
- Ekkehard Mai : inwardness and sensuality. Feuerbach's and Delacroix's “Medea” in comparison. In: Art of Nations. ISBN 3-7701-5422-3 , pp. 127-144.
- Inge Stephan: Medea: multimedia career of a mythological figure. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar 2006, ISBN 3-412-36805-9 , pp. 19/20.
Web links
- Feuerbach: A national comparison of history painting. on kunstgeschichte.uni-muenchen.de (PDF, pp. 11–15.)
- Janina Majerczyk: Anselm Feuerbach - model and mythology. Osnabrück 2011, ( PDF, online ).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Medea (1870). ( Memento of the original from September 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on pinakothek.de
- ^ Walter Josephi : Adolf Friedrich von Schack and Anselm Feuerbach. Original letters from the artist and his mother in the Mecklenburg Secret and Main Archive in Schwerin. In: Mecklenburgische Jahrbücher. 103: 85-166 (1939). ( online )
- ^ Karl Werner: Feuerbach, Anselm . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 48, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1904, pp. 524-533.
- ↑ Henriette Feuerbach : A legacy from Anselm Feuerbach. Medea. Judgment of Paris in the Gutenberg-DE project Kurt Wolff Verlag , Leipzig 1920
- ↑ Rose-Marie and Rainer Hagen: Masterpieces in detail. Volume 2, Cologne 2011, ISBN 978-3-8365-1548-1 , pp. 605 ff.
- ↑ Janina Majerczyk: 7.1 On the first and second version of "Medea". In: Anselm Feuerbach - Model and Mythology. Osnabrück 2011, ( PDF, online ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. , P. 52 ff.).
- ↑ Janina Majerczyk: 7.2.1 “Medea with the dagger”. In: Anselm Feuerbach - Model and Mythology. Osnabrück 2011, ( PDF, online ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. , P. 60 / 61).
- ↑ Anselm Feuerbach's letters to his mother, Volume 2, Berlin 1911, p. 270.
- ↑ Janina Majerczyk: 7.2.2 “Medea at the urn”. In: Anselm Feuerbach - Model and Mythology. Osnabrück 2011, ( PDF, online ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. , P. 63 / 64).
