Portrait of Ohm Friedrich Corinth
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| Portrait of Ohm Friedrich Corinth |
|---|
| Lovis Corinth , 1900 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 98 × 79 cm |
| East Prussian State Museum , Lüneburg |
The portrait of Ohm Friedrich Corinth is an oil painting by the German painter Lovis Corinth . It is executed in portrait format on canvas and measures 98 × 79 centimeters. The portrait of his Ohm was created in 1900 when the artist visited his uncle in Moterau (today Sabarje ) in East Prussia. It was owned by the Corinth family until 1987, most recently with Wilhelmine Corinth in New York City . Then it was bought by the German government for the newly founded East Prussian State Museum in Lüneburg , in whose collection it is still to this day.
Image description
The painting shows Friedrich Corinth, the artist's uncle, sitting on a wooden chair in his living room. He is dressed in a brown dressing gown and sits in the backlight in front of an open and brightly lit window. The right arm hangs down, the left one lies on the left thigh and closes the body shape. The light from the window divides the room into a light left and a darker right side, which particularly emphasizes the face and the left hand and emphasizes the posture on the chair. The body is covered by the gray skirt, contours are kept "in the vague". The face is turned towards the viewer and the painter, the bright blue eyes are open and look directly at the painter and viewer. It is framed by the thick gray head hair and the strong whiskers that leave the chin free. Even Charlotte Berend-Corinth mentioned in their works the bright light-blue eyes and lush dark gray hair.
The furniture in the room can only be seen indistinctly. To the right of the wooden chair is a waist-high chest of drawers or a table, the light-colored window behind the uncle ends at about the same height as a window sill and is lined with light-colored curtains which, according to Charlotte Berend-Corinth, are painted "in light yellow". On the wall to the left of the person portrayed there is a picture of a person standing in front of a lake. On the upper right edge the picture is signed in several lines and inscribed with "Mein Ohm 78 J. a Moterau bei Tapiau July 1900 Lovis Corinth".
interpretation
The art historian Andrea Bärnreuther interprets the use of the backlight and the unclearly recognizable figure of the uncle as "the dignity of the person respecting the restraint of the picture" [and the artist], who leaves the portrayed "the secret of life, that of the life that is fixed Determination withdraws ". She further sums up: “In the calm serenity of those who are waiting for death, the ohm turns his face to the viewer with wide open eyes and slightly open mouth. It is the look of a person who has lived his life - the look of a life on demand. "
Bärnreuther goes on to explain that Corinth "with the inclusion of the interior in the representation" opens the view "beyond the mental and physical appearance of the grown old man into the seclusion of his limited domestic sphere, which shows the portrayed on the edge of society." This society describes it as “changing”, which sees “the cult of youth” coming through “the disintegration of the old order”. She relates the picture to the portrait of the poet Peter Hille painted by Corinth two years later . With both, Corinth succeeds "with the conception of the portrait as a gesture in social space, the advance into the representation of social existence".
Sabine Fehlemann , the former director of the Von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal , placed the picture in the context of Corinth's artistic development. Together with the pictures Portrait of Mother Rosenhagen and The Violin Player , on which he portrayed the future wife of Gerhart Hauptmann with Margarete Marschalk , the portrait of Ohm Friedrich Corinth shows for her how he "also in the portrait is increasingly leaving the fixed academic form of design, to let the mood and atmosphere flow in more and more. "
Portrait of the poet Peter Hille , 1902
Portrait of Mother Rosenhagen , 1899
The violin player , 1900
Background and origin
The uncle and the aunt in Moterau
The portrait of Ohm Friedrich Corinth painted Lovis Corinth during a stay with his uncle in July 1900. Lovis Corinth came from an agricultural family in Tapiau in East Prussia , now Gvardeysk . His father was a farmer and through marriage to his mother, a widow, also a tanner of the place. Corinth's relatives lived in the surrounding villages. Uncle Friedrich Corinth was also a farmer and lived in Moterau (today Sabarje). Lovis Corinth visited her regularly and also described her in his childhood memories as an anecdote about visits on high holidays:
“Our closest relatives, Ohm and aunt from Moterau, came regularly to visit and to church on high holidays. It was always a fun morning for me: everyone was getting ready to go to church. My father stood in front of the mirror, his face soaped, and shaved. Watching this was a lot of fun. Soon he stretched his lip and turned to the light, scraping off the stubble, and now he rounded one cheek so that the knife slid over it more evenly. The Ohm did not need that because he had a full beard. At that time, they also took the opportunity to cut each other's hair. The bun blonde hair lay on the floor after the laborious business, as if many Simsons had had to leave their curls. After church, a better meal was served with a tin can of brown beer, the sermon being hacked through and hardly any good hair left on the pastor. Towards evening they said goodbye to each other with a kiss and a handshake. The visitor got into the car and they watched him go a long time until the wagon disappeared behind the flower garden and behind Klafts Berg. "
Corinth already portrayed his uncle and aunt in 1880 in two of his earliest oil sketches as the portrait of Ohm in Moterau and portrait of the aunt in Moterau . In 1876 he began his artistic training at the Royal Art Academy in Königsberg, today's Kaliningrad , and stayed there until 1880 when he went to Munich on the recommendation of his teachers . The two pictures with a format of 42 cm × 32 cm each remained with the relatives in Moterau after completion and were later passed on to a R. Stange in Heiligenbeil, today Mamonowo . The later and present whereabouts of both portraits is unknown. In his Corinth monograph from 1925, the art historian Alfred Kuhn published a pencil drawing from 1879 showing his aunt, Ohm and an "Otto" in Moterau. Drawings of the stables and the kitchen on his uncle's farm come from the same year. Charlotte Berend-Corinth noted in her catalog raisonné Lovis Corinth: The Paintings that these two pictures were the first works by Corinth that she had noted together with the artist. It also points out that it is the same uncle who was also portrayed in the portrait of Ohm Friedrich Corinth by Lovis Corinth.
The stables (interior) , drawing from 1879
The kitchen (interior) , drawing from 1879
Portrait of Ohm in Moterau , oil painting from 1880
Portrait of the aunt in Moterau , oil painting from 1880
Temporal classification in Corinth's work
At the time the picture was created, Lovis Corinth's life was in a state of upheaval. Since beginning his studies in Munich, he tried to gain recognition in the Munich art scene, but found it difficult to establish himself there. At the end of the 1890s he intensified his contacts with the painters Walter Leistikow and Ernst Liebermann in Berlin, who founded the Berlin Secession there in 1898 and showed strong interest in Corinth's participation. At the time the picture was taken, Corinth was on a trip to Koenigsberg and the surrounding area, having previously spent some time at Gut Schulzendorf in Brandenburg as a guest of Richard Israel's family, where he also met Leistikow. A joint trip with Leistikow to Denmark followed directly after the Königsberg trip.
In 1900 Corinth painted several portraits, including one of his well-known self-portraits. Among those portrayed during this period are primarily artists and writers from the Corinthian environment in Munich and Berlin, including Count Eduard von Keyserling , Gerhart Hauptmann and Walter Leistikow.
Portrait of Count Eduard von Keyserling , 1900
Self-portrait without a collar , 1900
Portrait of Gerhart Hauptmann , 1900
When in 1900 the picture Salome, painted by Corinth , was rejected for the exhibition at the Munich Secession , Corinth decided, disappointed, to go to Berlin. Leistikow asked him to make the Salome available for the Berlin Secession exhibition, and it was a huge success. In the fall of that year he had a solo exhibition with Paul Cassirer , and he was a regular guest with Gerhart Hauptmann. That year he commuted regularly between Berlin and Munich and rented a temporary studio, and in the autumn of 1901 he completely moved to Berlin.
Provenance
The portrait of Ohm Friedrich Corinth remained after the completion privately owned by Lovis Corinth, from whose estate is in the possession of his family and later his daughter Wilhelmine Corinth , came later Wilhelmine Corinth-knocker. It is possible that the painting was first in the possession of Charlotte Berend-Corinth , who brought it to New York before giving it to her daughter. In 1987 the government of the Federal Republic of Germany bought the picture directly from Wilhelmine Corinth-Klopfer for the East Prussian State Museum in Lüneburg (inventory number 8084/87, acqu. 1987).
The portrait was shown at numerous exhibitions, starting with the Berlin Secession exhibition in Berlin in 1913. In the same year the picture was also shown in an art exhibition in Düsseldorf. In 1918 Corinth showed the picture again at the Berlin Secession and in 1923 in the National Gallery there . Corinth died in 1925; the following year the portrait was exhibited at the Kunstverein Chemnitz, the Kunstverein Frankfurt , the Kunstverein Kassel, the Nassauischer Kunstverein in Wiesbaden and again in the National Gallery. Further exhibitions with the portrait took place in 1927 at the Saxon Art Association in Dresden and in 1929 at the New Secession in Munich and at the Hagenbund in Vienna. In 1936 the Kunsthalle Basel showed the picture for the last time in the German-speaking area.
Between 1950 and 1952 the picture was part of a traveling exhibition of Corinth's works in numerous museums in the United States and Canada. In 1956 and 1958, the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg showed the picture again in Germany for the first time: as part of the German Painting exhibition and the commemorative exhibition to celebrate Corinth's 100th birthday. 1958 to 1959 the Kunsthalle Basel, the Kunstverein Hannover and the Städtische Galerie Munich as well as the Tate Gallery in London organized commemorative exhibitions with the picture. In 1964 it was shown by the Gallery of Modern Art in New York, in 1967 by the Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe, in 1976 by the Indianapolis Museum of Art and in 1979 by the Dixon Gallery in Memphis. In 1985 the picture was shown in the Museum Folkwang in Essen before it passed into the possession of the East Prussian State Museum in Lüneburg in 1987. In 1996 and 1997 it was part of a traveling exhibition at the Haus der Kunst in Munich, the National Gallery in Berlin, the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Tate Gallery. In 1999 it was shown in the Von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal as part of a Corinth exhibition and again in 2009 in the Austrian Gallery Belvedere in Vienna.
supporting documents
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Charlotte Berend-Corinth: Lovis Corinth: The paintings. Revised by Béatrice Hernad. Bruckmann Verlag, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-7654-2566-4 , p. 83.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Andrea Bärnreuther: Portrait of Ohm Friedrich Corinth. In: Peter-Klaus Schuster , Christoph Vitali, Barbara Butts (eds.): Lovis Corinth. Prestel, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-7913-1645-1 , pp. 138-139.
- ^ A b Sabine Fehlemann: Lovis Corinth - An Exhibition. In: Sabine Fehlemann (Ed.): Lovis Corinth. Exhibition in the Von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal, August 1 to September 19, 1999. Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal 1999, p. 30.
- ^ A b Lovis Corinth: autobiography. Hirzel, Leipzig 1926; Part one: childhood. Pp. 18-19. ( Full text at zeno.org).
- ↑ a b c Charlotte Berend-Corinth: Lovis Corinth: The paintings. Revised by Béatrice Hernad. Bruckmann Verlag, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-7654-2566-4 , p. 55.
- ^ Charlotte Berend-Corinth: Lovis Corinth: The paintings. Revised by Béatrice Hernad. Bruckmann Verlag, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-7654-2566-4 , pp. 55-56.
- ^ Horst clock: Lovis Corinth. California Press, Berkeley / Los Angeles 1990, ISBN 0-520-06776-2 , pp. 25-28.
- ↑ a b Zdenek Felix (Ed.): Lovis Corinth 1858-1925. Publication for the exhibition in the Folkwang Museum Essen (November 10, 1985 - January 12, 1986) and in the Kunsthalle of the Hypno-Kulturstiftung Munich (January 24 - March 30, 1986). DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 1985, ISBN 3-7701-1803-0 .
- ↑ Peter-Klaus Schuster, Christoph Vitali, Barbara Butts: Lovis Corinth. Saint Louis Art Museum, 1996, p. 138.
- ^ Opening of the exhibition with pictures by Lovis Corinth in the Belvedere on March 24th, 2009. ( Memento of the original from September 12, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. accessed on September 11, 2017.
literature
- Andrea Bärnreuther: Portrait of the Ohm Friedrich Corinth. In: Peter-Klaus Schuster , Christoph Vitali, Barbara Butts (eds.): Lovis Corinth. Prestel, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-7913-1645-1 , pp. 138-139.
- Charlotte Berend-Corinth : Lovis Corinth: The paintings . Revised by Béatrice Hernad. Bruckmann Verlag, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-7654-2566-4 , p. 83.
