Franz Stuck

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Franz von Stuck, self-portrait.

The Sin, 1893

Franz Stuck (February 24, 1863 - August 30, 1928) was a German symbolist/expressionist painter

[edit] Biography

Stuck was born at Tettenweis, in Bavaria, and received his artistic training at the Munich Academy.

He first made a name with his illustrations for Fliegende Blätter, and vignette designs for programmes and book decoration. He did not devote himself to painting until after 1889, the year in which he achieved a marked success with his first picture, The Warder of Paradise.

His style in painting is based on a thorough mastery of design, and is sculptural rather than pictorial. His favourite subjects are of mythological and allegorical character, but in his treatment of time-worn motifs he is altogether unconventional. A statuette of an athlete, bronze casts of which are at the Berlin and Budapest national galleries and the Hamburg Museum, affords convincing proof of his talent for plastic art.

Among his paintings the best known are The Sin and War, at the Munich Pinakothek, The Sphinx, The Crucifixion, The Rivals, Paradise Lost, Oedipus, Temptation, and Lucifer. Though Stuck was one of the leaders of the Munich Sezession, he enjoyed an appointment of professor at the academy.

Sisyphus, 1920.

From a historical viewpoint, it is notable that one of Stuck's (later) fans was Adolf Hitler, who admired many of the aforementioned paintings. Moreover, some historians claim that Stuck's painting, The Wild Chase, influenced Hitler's appearance. Reportedly, Hitler admired the painting, which depicts the Norse god Odin on horseback, and copied both Odin's hair style and mustache—facial features Hitler became well-known for. He also admired Stuck's Medusa's Head, claiming it resembled his mother, Klara Hitler. (Waite, The Psychopathic God). However, Stuck painted The Wild Chase during the 1880s, and died years before Hitler was elected Chancellor; he could not have foreseen its future influence.