Day 332 - "Inferno"

February 13, 2023

Gallery 829 contains 11 paintings and sculptures by 10 Northern and Central European artists working around 1900. Of these, Gustav Klimt is the only one I've ever heard of, and while this is no compliment to me,  I suspect I'm not atypical. The introductory placard notes that many of the works on display are recent acquisitions or long-term loans, a fact that may help to explain their unfamiliarity and perhaps suggests that the museum was slow to appreciate these artists (or perhaps that Ronald Lauder had already snapped up some of the best works for the Neue Galerie)  In any event, the room is a reminder that the art world did not entirely revolve around Paris, and that Brussels, Vienna, and Berlin were also centers of artistic innovation.

Today's work is one of the largest canvases on view (perhaps seven feet long and 4 feet high) and the one I initially found most difficult and ugly. Entitled "Inferno," it was painted in 1908 by Franz von Stuck, a German whose dates were 1863-1928.  Except for the bright hellish fire  in the background, the image's palette is a grim mix of grays, blacks, and ashy flesh tones.  The scene, replete with flames, a demonic creature with long tentacle-like (or is it snake-like?) arms,  and nude male figures whose heads are bowed between their knees in pain and grief, suggests traditional images of hell, like something out of  Michelangelo's Last Judgment or Bosch.  

But while the men are clearly tortured souls,  the female nudes strike me as startlingly ambiguous. The one on the left has her eyes closed but does not seem in agony. A demon is pressed against her right breast; he looks ready to suckle. (He also looks like a Black man, raising the association between Black men and sexuality.)  Another demon's tentacles clutch the woman on the right, with one tentacle extending between her legs. But her expression, with head thrown back, could be read as one of agony or of sexual ecstasy (think Bernini's Saint Theresa). 

I wonder if von Stuck was making a statement about the frightening nature of unbounded sexuality, especially of women's sexuality.  Later, I read in Wikipedia that von Stuck was Hitler's favorite painter.If my speculation about the painter's intention is right, does this add anything to our understanding of Hitler's warped personality?