114 / 175
Impressionist & Modern Art
| 24
3222*
LOVIS CORINTH(Tapiau 1858 - 1925 Zandvoort)
Zinnien. 1924.
Oil on canvas.
Signed and dated lower right:
Lovis Corinth / 1924.
70 x 65.5 cm.
Provenance:
- Private collection, Southern Germany,
acquired 2012 by the present owner.
Exhibitions:
- Deutsche Malerei. Ausgewählte Meister
seit Caspar David Friedrich, Wolfsburg
1956.
- Lovis Corinth. Gedächtnisausstellung
zur Feier seines 100. Geburtstages,
Kunstverein Wolfsburg, 1958.
- Lovis Corinth. Gedächtnisausstellung
zur Feier seines 100. Geburtstages,
Städtische Galerie München, 1958.
- Aus tausend grünen Spiegeln. Pflan-
zen und Blumen in der Kunst des 20.
Jahrhunderts, Galerie Schlichtenmaier,
Grafenau, 1996.
Literature: Berend-Corinth, Charlotte/
Hernad, Béatrice, Lovis Corinth: Die
Gemälde, Werkverzeichnis, Munich : F.
Bruckmann, 1992, p. 177, no. 944 (with ill.
p. 830).
After the end of the First World War and
at the age of 61, Lovis Corinth returned
to his house at Lake Walchen, near Berlin,
which his wife Charlotte Berend had had
built for him. This was the start of a very
successful period, in which he painted
mostly landscapes, portraits and still lifes.
The heavy stroke which he suffered in
1911, and which left him paralysed on the
left of his body and with a trembling right
hand, had a positive effect on his subse-
quent work. For during his convalescence,
Corinth began to explore new styles, such
as Expressionism, and gradually developed
a new way of painting. He abandoned the
highly dominant history painting of old, and
developed a new interest in the painting
of portraits and objects. Alongside the
many self-portraits, reflections of an artist
suffering increasingly from depression, he
also turned to landscape. The paintings,
which mostly show the area around his
house at Lake Walchen, already, in terms
of colour and form, show signs of expres-
siveness. Such is the case also with his still
lifes of flowers, of which Corinth produced
numerous outstanding compositions in
the 1920s – in his late period.
“Corinth too – and in this is he fully the
Impressionist – saw the world increasin-
gly through the veil of colour. With him,
however, this colour is never, as it was with
Cézanne for example, pure colour, which
has removed itself frommateriality and
therefore exists only for the eye. On the
contrary, the great impression of moistu-
re, which Corinth’s late pictures give out,
presuppose physical and sensual associ-
ations(…) It is not correct, or at least it is
not precisely the case, to talk of spirituali-
sation, since even in Corinth’s late works,
the effect is still that of materiality (…)
The particular interiorisation in Corinth’s
late works, lies in the fact that the other,
coarse, sensory world is almost entirely
lost behind the veil of colour. What remains
is a floating, entirely painterly and distilled
personal vision of the world“. (translated
from: Beenken, Hermann, Das neunzehn-
te Jahrhundert in der deutschen Kunst,
Munich 1944, p. 219.)
The work offered here at auction is a
typical example of Corinth’s late still lifes
of flowers. Few artists of the 20th century
have demonstrated such an interest in
flowers as Corinth. This painting was pro-
duced in the year of Corinth’s death, and is
thus situated in that tension between the
sense of mortality and an inexhaustible
love of life. Corinth places the vase, not
in the centre of the painting, but on the
right hand edge of the table, in the Golden
Section. The finesse of this compositional
feature increases the arc of suspense
inherent in the work. Individual muted
tones break up the purity of the bouquet
and already anticipate the fading of the
flowers. In contrast to his own state of
health however, Corinth wishes to depict
rather the fullness of life and the splendour
of existence.
The entire painting is dominated by
intense colours, so that the species of
the flowers takes on a secondary role.
The splendidly coloured, blazing, ponde-
rous flowers, simply bursting with life, are
rendered in a bright red and yellow, and
through the thicker impasto of the white
brush strokes, the flowers are bathed in
a pleasing light. Corinth is master of the
right combination of colours, and while he
depicts the background and the vase in
somewhat muted tones, he enables each
flower to come into its own through its
respective colour, and so a wonderful total
picture emerges.
CHF 350 000 / 500 000
(€ 324 070 / 462 960)