Death and the Old Man (Tod und Greis) from Dance of Death (Totentanz)
1921, published 1922
Medium
one from a portfolio of five softground etchings on wove paper
Dimensions
plate: 23.8 x 17.6 cm (9 3/8 x 6 15/16 in.) sheet: 30 x 24 cm (11 13/16 x 9 7/16 in.)
Classification
Portfolio
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift in memory of Sigbert H. Marcy and in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art
Accession Number
1990.111.1.3
Art Historical Context
This powerful etching, *Death and the Old Man belongs to Lovis Corinth’s 1921 portfolio *Dance of Death* (*Totentanz*), published following year. The German artist, known for his evolution from Impressionist roots toward a more expressive, emotionally charged style, here revives a centuries-old European motif in which Death confronts people of every age and station. In this plate an aged figure faces the inevitable, a theme that carried particular resonance in the early 1920s. Executed as a softground etching on wove paper, the work exploits a printmaking method that yields richer, more paint...
About the Artist
Lovis Corinth · 1858–1925
Lovis Corinth, born Franz Heinrich Louis on July 21, 1858, in Tapiau, East Prussia (now Gvardeysk, Russia), to a tanner father, displayed prodigious drawing talent from childhood. He began formal training at the Königsberg Academy in 1876, then moved to the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich from 1880 to 1884, studying under Ludwig von Löfftz and briefly Franz von Defregger, where he absorbed a Realis...