2023-04-29 17:27:00
How the painter prince tamed Eros
The Munich bourgeois Franz von Stuck (1913)
What: pa/akg-images
Longing for antiquity between Art Nouveau and Symbolism: Franz von Stuck’s painting lives on above all in his villa in Munich. Now comes a mythological fantasy that has been privately owned for almost 120 years.
Franz Stuck, the Lower Bavarian miller’s son, quickly gained renown and honours. He was ennobled and had a monumental studio and residential building built in Munich, complete with interior design designed by him, as a total work of art over the Isar. Franz von Stuck soon liked himself as a painter prince with the right attitude: an uncomfortable man, successful and charismatic, resistant, courageous, even obstinate. In 1892 he became a co-founder of the Munich Secession; the established scene was far too outdated for him.
When the elitist representative of the pro-government bourgeoisie was held hostage by the revolutionary Red Guards in Munich for a few days in 1919 during the Soviet Republic, which was only put in place for a few weeks, his fame no longer had the radiance it was accustomed to. Art Nouveau, to which Stuck was somewhat hastily and conveniently attributed, and its outstanding sense of form, color and style for symbolism, had pretty much had their day after the First World War. It was only in the late 1980s and 1990s that Stuck’s mastery was remembered and his artistic work adequately classified.
The Museum Villa Stuck in Munich-Bogenhausen
Source: pa/Westend61/Martin Siepmann
Franz von Stuck’s ever-present references to mythology and antiquity, when he wasn’t working on the portraits of women promoting status, wealth and fame, merge into an inimitable, sometimes limitless fantasy world populated by nymphs, fauns – and again and again centaurs.
His first bronze sculpture was a wounded centaur, flayed in pain. A hybrid creature with a horse’s body and a human torso, said to have descended from the union of the king of the Lapiths and a cloud. Many good qualities are not attributed to these mythical creatures. The centaurs are sensual, heroically brave, impetuous, uncontrolled and lascivious, are considered brawlers and drunkards. Be that as it may, Stuck was intrigued.
In 1902, for the second time in his oeuvre, he turned to the painterly depiction of a centaur and placed it in front of an almost black background, as on an Attic wall decoration. As so often, he had the painting framed decoratively according to his own design. The old colossus trots wearily, with no trace of irascibility or unbridled desire.
Instead, he plays a shawm like a cute faun, that other half-goat, half-human hybrid. Introspective, full of life and now dog-eared, he has given up the fight. A little Cupid stands on his back like the driver of a chariot and reins him in with a ribbon of delicate roses.
Franz von Stuck, “Amor and Centaur”, 1902
Source: KARL & FABER
Provided with cheerfully tamed Eros, “Kentaur und Amor” had its big appearance in 1903 at the first exhibition of the German Artists’ Association, co-founded by Stuck; a lady from Dresden society took an immediate liking. Now, in the centenary year of the Karl & Faber auction house, the 71 by 75 centimeter work will be called up at an estimate of 100,000 euros on May 25, 2023 in Munich.
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