I really love this etching by the almost forgotten German Symbolist Alexander Frenz. Frenz seems to have drawn much of his inspiration from myth and fairytale, as in this mysterious scene in which a hooded man summons a tree nymph out of the stump of a blasted tree, with music he is playing on an antique stringed instrument. The etching was first published in Originalradirungen des Künstlerklubs St. Lucas, Düsseldorf, Heft 1 (c.1893). This copy as published by E. A. Seemann, Leipzig, for Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst, N. F. IV, 1893.
Alexander Frenz, Idylle
Etching with aquatint, 1893
Alexander Frenz was born in Rheydt in 1861. Frenz studied at the Düsseldorf Kunstakademie and Malerschule, and in the atelier of Franz von Lenbach. Like many German artists of his day, Alexander Frenz was profoundly influenced by the Symbolist art of Franz von Stuck. He died in Düsseldorf in 1941.
6 comments:
So beautiful Neil! Someday perhaps you'll tell us how you are able to discover all these fantastic prints!
Nancy - I think the question is, when does passionate interest tip over into dangerous obsession?
For those of us who hadn't heard of Alexander Frenz, I guess he's not forgotten, I'm embarrassed to say. The man playing the violin is very finely done but I have my doubts about the nymph. Is the implication of the image that he is dreaming her?
A lovely print, with lots of interesting detail in it, visible when you view it at a larger size. And his face, and the way she is looking down at him, are beautifully done.
Jane - I think you're right that she is being dreamed into being, or at least is existing in a parallel or overlapping dimension. I think it's rather subtly done.
Philip - The detail is very compelling. I always worry with a print that requires hard looking that my photo won't be up to scratch. This is not too bad - but you still can't see Frenz's signature in the plate at the bottom left, which is there to the naked eye (not that my eye is ever naked nowadays).
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