"A Love" by Max Klinger

4 April–1 July 1990

The graphic cycle A Love (Eine Liebe) by Max Klinger, recounts the plight of a young upper-class woman who becomes involved in an amorous affair. Despite her dream of happiness, the woman is overcome with shame and guilt, and finally, dies in childbirth. Paralleling the main story, the artist interjects the quasi-biblical scene of Intermezzo, in which Adam and Eve huddle before the figures of the Devil and Death. Klinger belongs to a group of artists in Germany who, in reaction against commonly accepted notions of Positivism and the popular artistic tenets of Realism, and in accord with the pessimistic philosophy of Arthur Schopenhaur, chose to escape into a subjectively determined world. He and his fellow artists probed the subconscious and strove to make allusions to this alter-world through their art.

Curator: Stephanie D’Alessandro, graduate curatorial intern

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