1. Max Klinger was a German artist who produced significant work in painting, sculpture, prints and graphics, as well as writing a treatise articulating his ideas on art and the role of graphic arts and printmaking in relation to painting.
25 Facts About Max Klinger
1. 2.
Max Klinger is associated with symbolism, the Vienna Secession, and Jugendstil, the German manifestation of Art Nouveau.
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Max Klinger is best known today for his many prints, particularly a series entitled Paraphrase on the Finding of a Glove and his monumental sculptural installation in homage to Beethoven at the Vienna Secession in 1902.
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Max Klinger enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe in 1874 where he was a pupil of Karl Gussow.
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When Gussow left Karlsruhe to become the Director of the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, Max Klinger moved to Berlin as well to complete his studies there.
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Max Klinger shared a studio with Christian Krohg and the two had a mutual admiration for French naturalist authors like Emile Zola and Gustave Flaubert, who explored the shadowy aspects of urban life and the hypocrisy of society and the bourgeoisie in their novels.
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At that time realism was the prevailing style in Germany and Arnold Bocklin was one of the few artist active there that Max Klinger felt a close affinity to.
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Max Klinger was drawn to and studied the etchings and prints of many masters that were more aligned with his sensibilities including Durer, Rembrandt, Goya, Runge, Menzel, and Rops.
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Max Klinger began an apprenticeship studying engraving under Hermann Sagert and soon became a skilled and imaginative engraver in his own right.
10.
Max Klinger visited Brussels for a time in 1879, and the following year he spent time in Munich.
11.
Max Klinger was achieving some notoriety with his pen and ink drawings and prints when in 1881 he published two sets of etchings, including Paraphrase on the Finding of a Glove, which was an immediate success and established his reputation.
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Max Klinger first began sculpting about 1883, and sculpture slowly came to dominate his output in his later years.
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Max Klinger conceived and started work on his Beethoven sculpture while in Paris but, it was not completed and fully realized until 1902.
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Max Klinger moved to Rome in 1889, staying until 1893, studying the Italian masters, where the 15th century artists and works from antiquity are said to have been something of a revelation to him.
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Max Klinger intensified his studies of anatomy, the nude, and the representation of mass and volume during this period of his life.
16.
In 1911 Max Klinger left Asenijeff, when her mental health begin to show signs of deteriorating, for an 18-year-old model, Gertrud Bock, who he ultimately married a few months before his death in 1920.
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Max Klinger had a lifelong passion for music and musical elements are often reflected and expressed in his art.
18.
Max Klinger produced sculptures of Beethoven, Brahms, and Liszt as well as a bust of Richard Wagner and the plinth of the Richard Wagner Memorial.
19.
Max Klinger studied and took measurements of Beethoven's death mask in Vienna and traveled to Laas in southwestern France to personally select the alabaster, and the Pyrenees and Syra, Greece to select marbles.
20.
Beethoven was the theme of the 14th exhibition of the Vienna Secession in 1902, and Max Klinger's sculpture was brought to Vienna as the centerpiece.
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Max Klinger's Beethoven was installed in the central hall with Alfred Roller's mural Night Descending on the wall behind it.
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However, Max Klinger's sculpture received its criticism as well, some dismissing it as kitsch, while others were offended by seeing Beethoven represented nude.
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Max Klinger was cited by many artists as being a major link between the symbolist movement of the 19th century and the start of the metaphysical movement.
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Max Klinger's work was admired and a formative influence on later artist such as Max Ernst and other surrealist artist.
25.
In Elsa Bernstein's naturalist play Dammerung, Max Klinger is mentioned in the third act when Carl talks of being able to afford "etchings by Max Klinger" for 80 francs.