On Death, Part I
Medium
etching and aquatint
Classification
Department
Prints
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland
Accession Number
1933.126
Tags
male
About this artwork
In On Death, Part One, a series of ten etchings, the Symbolist Max Klinger envisioned the ephemeral nature of life and the suddenness of death, themes that prompted one contemporary critic to call the portfolio a modern "Dance of Death." In Night, the first in the series, a man sits on a bench in an enclosed garden. A moonbeam breaks through the clouds over the sea, and on the path to the right is a lily with a fluttering butterfly. The landscape seems an extension of the figure’s melancholy tho...