LOVIS CORINTH
(1858-1925)
This was one of five from the Dance of Death (Totentanz) series of etchings which include Death and the Young Man, Death and the Old Man, Death and the Woman and Death and the Couple. The subjects Corinth used for these works are his son Thomas, Hermann Struck (1867-1944) and wife, and his own wife Charlotte Berend; the 'old man' may be his own father. The subject of death and the artist had been the subject of previous etchings by Corinth: in 1916 he made two images, Der Kunstler und der Tod I & II, portraying himself with a skeleton, placing the Greek word for Death in large letters above it.
It has been suggested that Corinth began etching as a means of remedying perceived shortfalls in his use of line, through the precise control of the etching needle. Corinth did not often use soft-ground etching (a technique possibly introduced to him by Struck) which lends this work what has been described as a 'gloomy' quality.
Copyright © Trustees of Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford.
Extract taken from Prints, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery .