Negro Othello

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Negro Othello (Lovis Corinth)
Negro Othello
Lovis Corinth , 1884
Oil on canvas
78 × 58.5 cm
Lentos Art Museum Linz

Negro »Othello« (also Un Othello ) is a painting by the German painter Lovis Corinth . The picture shows a black port worker or sailor from the port of Antwerp as a chest portrait and was painted in 1884. It has been in the Lentos Art Museum in Linz since 1953 .

Image description

According to the catalog raisonné by Charlotte Berend-Corinth , the picture shows a “ Negro in a red and white striped wool shirt. The background is black and gray. ”The man is shown in a frontal portrait from the belly line upwards and turns his upper body slightly to the left, the face is turned towards the viewer. He is wearing a holey wool shirt with red and white horizontal stripes and a wide collar, which is very roughly painted. Of the arms, only the upper arms and on the right a piece of the forearm are visible, the shirt ends just before the elbow joint.

Due to the dark skin color and black hair as well as the black-gray background, the facial features are only indistinctly, the hair fades into the background. The face itself is disturbed by strong lights.

The picture is signed with the words in the upper left picture field in the background

Lovis Corinth Anvers 84

and on the right with

Un Othello

overwritten.

Background and interpretation

The picture is an early work by Corinth and was painted on a trip in Antwerp . Corinth went to Antwerp for three months in 1884 and studied there with Paul Eugène Gorge , in whose studio he also made this picture and a portrait of the painter Paul Eugène Gorge (BC 22). In the same year he was able to record his first international success with his painting The Conspiracy (painted in Munich): The picture was awarded a bronze medal at an exhibition in London (this award is questioned by Ulrike Lorenz ) and shown in the Paris Salon in 1885 . The man portrayed is a dock worker or sailor from the port of Antwerp. Lothar Brauner places the picture in the tradition and under the influence of Frans Hals , but emphasizes that Corinth probably did not know his pictures.

Jean-Léon Gérôme : A Baschi-Bosuk (1869)

Gross compared the picture Negro »Othello« with the work Ein Baschi-Bosuk by Jean-Léon Gérôme , which can be assigned to Orientalism , in order to highlight the differences between the “ Negro portraits ”, especially in relation to the sensuality of the pictures. Compared to Corinth's Othello, the black soldier portrayed by Gérôme shows "calm, security, pride, reinforced by the awe-inspiring attire" while Othello looks excited. The formal sensuality of the Gérôme picture is characterized by a restrained representation and fine coordination of the light-dark distribution, while Corinth is dominated by a "conscious dissolution of color spots and blotch zones" and the use of heavy brush strokes. The strong contrasts between light and dark caused by the coarse shirt and the lights on the face disturb the picture. According to Gross' analysis, Corinth's portrait belongs “in the humanistic tradition of psychologically in-depth depictions of negroes from Rembrandt and Frans Hals to Géricault ” “to the 'modern' realism that strives for immediate truth in life .”

According to Andrea Bärnreuther, the picture seems to " tear away the distancing element in the unusual directness of Trübner's portraits of the Moor (1873)."

  • Wilhelm Trübner: Smoking Mohr (1873)

  • Wilhelm Trübner: Mohr with Peonies (1873)

Provenance

The negro "Othello" was first in the private possession of R. Brackl in Munich, then with F. Dägling in Königsberg (today Kaliningrad), H. Thannhäuser in Munich and J. Baer in Berlin. In 1953 the picture was acquired by the New Gallery of the City of Linz (today Lentos Art Museum Linz).

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c d Charlotte Berend-Corinth : Lovis Corinth. Catalog raisonné. Revised by Béatrice Hernad. Bruckmann Verlag, Munich 1958, 1992; BC 19, p. 57. ISBN 3-7654-2566-4 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Friedrich Gross: The sensuality of Corinth's painting. In: Zdenek Felix (Ed.): Lovis Corinth. 1858-1925. DuMont Buchverlag Cologne 1985; Pp. 40-41. ISBN 3-7701-1803-0 .
  3. ^ Charlotte Berend-Corinth : Lovis Corinth. Catalog raisonné. Revised by Béatrice Hernad. Bruckmann Verlag, Munich 1958, 1992; BC 22, p. 58. ISBN 3-7654-2566-4 .
  4. ↑ Ulrike Lorenz : Lovis Corinth (185-1925). In: Ulrike Lorenz, Marie-Amélie zu Salm-Salm, Hans-Werner Schmiedt (eds.): Lovis Corinth and the birth of modernity . Kerber Verlag Bielefeld 2008; Pp. 210-211. ISBN 978-3-86678-177-1 .
  5. ^ A b Peter Brauner: Negro "Othello" In: Peter-Klaus Schuster , Christoph Vitali, Barbara Butts (ed.): Lovis Corinth . Prestel Munich 1996; Pp. 100-101. ISBN 3-7913-1645-1 .
  6. ↑ Andrea Bärnreuther: Biography In: Peter-Klaus Schuster , Christoph Vitali, Barbara Butts (Ed.): Lovis Corinth . Prestel Munich 1996; Pp. 100-101. ISBN 3-7913-1645-1 .

literature