22 Paintings, RELIGIOUS ART - Paintings from the Bible by the Masters, Franz von Stuck, with footnotes, 21

Franz von Stuck, (1863-1928)

Inferno, c. 1908

128.5 x 209 cm

Oil on canvas

"His painting Inferno rendered an extraordinary panaroma of the damned writhing in eternal torment. A syphilitic whore with a death’s head stands stiffly on the left while a demon readies to suckle at her withered teat. Two muscled figures sit doubled up in agony at the scene’s center. On the right, a venomous serpent coils itself around two damned souls. Stuck used ophidian imagery repeatedly in his paintings and this particular Hydra wildly sibilates as it crushes its victims. Backlit with fiery igneous rock, Stuck focused light on each damned soul so as to detail every facet of their agony. Inferno successfully depicts an arresting scene of chthonian grotesques for its viewers." More

Franz Stuck (February 23, 1863 – August 30, 1928), ennobled as Franz von Stuck in 1906, was a German painter, sculptor, engraver, and architect. Born at Tettenweis near Passau, Stuck displayed an affinity for drawing and caricature from an early age. To begin his artistic education he relocated in 1878 to Munich, where he would settle for life. From 1881 to 1885 Stuck attended the Munich Academy.

Franz von Stuck (1863–1928)

Samson, c. 1890

Oil on canvas

37 cm (14.57 in.), Width: 56.5 cm (22.24 in.)

 Museum Villa Stuck, Munich

Franz von Stuck's early painting, which titled "Samson" (1890), and which was considered lost since it's last mention in 1924 by Stuck's biographer, the poet OJ Bierbaum; who commented that the image: "One is more inclined to think of one of the labors of Hercules, as to the fact of the Old Testament ." More 

He first became well known by cartoons for Fliegende Blätter, and vignette designs for programmes and book decoration. In 1889 he exhibited his first paintings at the Munich Glass Palace, winning a gold medal for The Guardian of Paradise.

Franz von Stuck

Crucifixion, 1913

Tempera on canvas

190 cm (74.8 in.), Width: 165 cm (64.96 in.) 

Museum der Bildenden Künste - Leipzig

In 1892 Stuck co-founded the Munich Secession, and also executed his first sculpture, Athlete. The next year he won further acclaim with the critical and public success of what is now his most famous work, the painting The Sin. Also during 1893, Stuck was awarded a gold medal for painting at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and was appointed to a royal professorship. In 1895 he began teaching painting at the Munich Academy.

Franz von Stuck (1863 - 1928)

Crucifixion Christi, c. (1913)
165 x 190 cm (64,8 x 74,7 inches)
Leipzig, Museum

Stuck chose to portray the most dramatic moment of Christ's death, when the sun went dark and the heavens cracked. The scene concentrates entirely on the deathly pale Christ, who is lit in a bright heavenly glow against the dark setting. Apart from Christ and the two murderers, of whom one is lost in the darkness and the other seen from the back and almost invisible, the only others present are John and Mary. More

Franz von Stuck (1863–1928)

Golgotha, c. 1917 

Oil on canvas

Brooklyn Museum - New York, NY (United States)

Stuck devoted several canvases to this subject late in his career, during the difficult years of World War I. Calling on new scholarly theories regarding the Gospel accounts, Stuck departs from tradition and places Christ at eye level with the witnesses to his sufferings. The artist cleverly structures his composition, placing the viewer immediately to the left of the crucified thief in the foreground and to the right of the haloed Virgin Mary, thereby closing a solemn yet intimate circle. Stuck also chooses to show Christ with his feet side by side rather than overlapping—again, referencing nineteenth-century debates about the historical details of this method of execution. More

In 1897 Stuck married an American widow, Mary Lindpainter, and began work designing his own residence and studio, the Villa Stuck. His designs for the villa included everything from layout to interior decorations; for his furniture Stuck received another gold medal at the 1900 Paris World Exposition.

Franz von Stuck (1863–1928)

Pietà, c. 1891

Oil on canvas
Height: 95 cm (37.4 in.), Width: 178.5 cm (70.28 in.)

Städel Museum - Frankfurt (Germany)

Stuck’s big idea is humanity itself, in all its complexity and contradiction, all its passion and pain. In paintings such as Pieta, we bear witness to the Virgin Mary’s grief as we, too, look upon the dead body of Christ, to whom von Stuck often gave his own features in the paintings, thus placing himself in that most passionate and pathetic of roles. More

Having attained much fame by this time, Stuck was ennobled on December 9, 1905 and would receive further public honours from around Europe during the remainder of his life. He continued to be well respected among young artists as professor at the Munich Academy, even after his artistic styles became unfashionable. Notable students of his over the years include Paul Klee, Hans Purrmann, Wassily Kandinsky, Alf Bayrle and Josef Albers.

Franz von Stuck

Lucifer, c. 1891

oil on canvas

National Gallery for Foreign Art (Sofia, Bulgaria)

Stuck’s Lucifer (1890; detail shown above) strikes the viewer not just as an embodiment of evil, but an embodiment of the human element in evil. An early critic wrote of “appalling Lucifer, sitting alone in the nether gloom with incandescent greenish eyes.” Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria, once owner of Lucifer, told von Stuck that the painter “terrified” his ministers, who made the sign of the cross upon first sight of the fallen archangel—a story von Stuck retold with glee, one presumes.  What makes Lucifer stick in your mind isn’t some reproduction of the glamour of evil, but rather the poignant sense of loss in those glowing green eyes, the envy of the heaven he fell from fueling the fires of the hell he must now fashion. von Stuck could paint both convincing Christs and Satans because he always held onto the common thread of the humanity at the core of such figures. More

Stuck’s masterwork, “Lucifer.” As with many of his portraits, the subject gazes out toward the viewer—but off center and with pale, enraged eyes, the fallen angel is looking through the audience, not at them. Plotting his revenge and cupping his broken wings, this greatest symbol of inversion—once divine, now demonic, once the favorite, now the enemy—sees through the material aspects to the very essence of humanity and how it can be exploited to subvert divine order. Unlike Stuck’s other composite beasts whose hooves are planted firmly on earth, Lucifer has wings that for flight and ascendance, but now form only a dark shell, a reminder of his fall, crumpled by a thin crescent of light descending from above. More

Franz von Stuck

Die Versuchung (The Temptation)

In the middle of the picture, between Adam and Eve, Stuck positioned the Tree of Knowledge around which a giant snake has curled itself. Eve, who has already been seduced by the snake and sampled the forbidden fruit, is shown timidly offering it to Adam. Torn between accepting or refusing the apple, Adam's leg is simultaneously being enveloped by the devil’s tail. Stuck clearly used the forbidden fruit as a metaphor of the seductive and erotic power of woman. This is reflected not only in the painting’s title but also in Eve’s gesture: while offering him the apple in one hand, she clasps her breast in the other. More

Franz von Stuck, (1863-1928)

Adam and Eve, ca. 1920-28

98.0 x 93.5 cm

Oil on wood

Here Stuck altered the iconography. The tree is left out entirely. Instead, the devil uses the woman herself as the temptress of man. Rather than the apple, Eve extends the snake’s head, in which the apple is clearly visible between the fangs of its gaping mouth. Both snake and woman conjoin in their attempt to seduce man, just as they do in Stuck’s famous later paintings of Die Sünde (The Sin).

Franz von Stuck, (1863-1928)

Temptation - Adam and Eve

Oil on wood

Mid Rhineland Museum

Franz von Stuck (1863 - 1928)

ADAM UND EVA, 1893

73 x 68,5 x 3,5 cm

Bronze

Franz von Stuck (1863 - 1928)

ADAM UND EVA (ADAM AND EVE)

Plaster

70 by 74.5cm., 27½ by 29¼in.

An interesting aspect of this relief, and the bronx above, is the opposing representations of the two nudes. While Adam resembles antique statues from the 5th century BC, Eve is emphatically modern, sensitively modelled from nature and stylized in a way that is typical of von Stuck.

Franz von Stuck died on August 30, 1928 in Munich; his funeral address memorialized him as "the last prince of art of Munich's great days". He is buried in the Munich Waldfriedhof next to his wife Mary.

Franz von Stuck (1863–1928)

The Guardian of Paradise, c. 1889

Oil on canvas

250 cm (98.43 in.), Width: 167 cm (65.75 in.) 

Brooklyn Museum - New York, NY (United States)

In 1889 Stuck exhibited his first paintings at the Munich Glass Palace, winning a gold medal for The Guardian of Paradise.

Franz von Stuck (1863–1928)

The lost Paradise, c. 1897
Oil on canvas
200 x 290 cm
Galerie Neue Meister in Dresden, Germany

 “After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword.” (Genesis 3:24)

Franz von Stuck (1863–1928)

The Explusion from Paradise, c. 1890

Oil on canvas

Musée d'Orsay - Paris (France)

In the present painting, the angel is turned into profile, and Adam and Eve are added at the right. The angel’s bent wings are firmly planted on the ground, balancing the slight curve of the two bodies on the right. A vanishing demarcation line indicates the border of Paradise in the center of the painting, reinforcing its symmetrical composition. The dark and light bodies of Adam and Eve repeat the rhythm of the angel’s dark wings and light body. The most innovative element is the scintillating light which creates an unreal magic space. More

Franz von Stuck, (1863-1928)

Judith, (1924)

83 x 157 cm

Oil on canvas

Schwerin State Museum

Franz von Stuck, (1863-1928)

Judith (1926)

83 x 157 cm

Oil on canvas

Schwerin State Museum

Franz von Stuck, (1863-1928)

Judith and Holofernes, c. 1927

82 × 74 cm

Oil on canvas

Collection Otto Heilmann, Munich, Germany

Modern paintings of this scene often cast Judith nude, as was signalled already by Klimt. Franz Stuck's 1928 Judith has "the deliverer of her people" standing naked and holding a sword besides the couch on which Holofernes, half-covered by blue sheets—where the text portrays her as god-fearing and chaste, "Franz von Stuck's Judith becomes, in dazzling nudity, the epitome of depraved seduction"

The account of the beheading of Holofernes by Judith is given in the Book of Judith, and is the subject of many paintings and sculptures from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. In the story, Judith, a beautiful widow, is able to enter the tent of Holofernes because of his desire for her. Holofernes was an Assyrian general who was about to destroy Judith's home, the city of Bethulia. Overcome with drink, he passes out and is decapitated by Judith; his head is taken away in a basket (often depicted as carried by an elderly female servant). More

Franz von Stuck, (1863-1928)

Salome, c. 1906

45.7 × 24.7 cm

Oil on canvas

Lenbachhaus

Franz von Stuck, (1863-1928)

Salome, 1920

90.2 x 66 cm (35 1/2 x 26 in.)

Oil on canvas

Salome, stepdaughter of Herod II, is depicted in the Bible as a femme fataleâ. Her dance before the King so pleases him that he ultimately agrees to the beheading of John the Baptist. Von Stuck highlights Salome`s seductive and rather sinister”qualities; the tilt of her head and positioning of her body emphasize her long, lean figure as well as the wide expanses of naked skin. Her smile similarly reveals her delight at entertaining her audience, the viewer. This representation is related to a variation of the same subject produced by von Stuck in 1906 (see above). Salome is shown the same pose, but accompanied by a black woman carrying the head of John the Baptist. More

Franz von Stuck (1863–1928)

Batsheba, c. 1912

Oil on canvas

95 × 91 cm (37.4 × 35.8 in)

National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires

According to the Hebrew Bible, "Bat Sheva," , "daughter of the oath"; was the wife of Uriah the Hittite and later of David, king of the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah. She is most known for the Bible story in which she was summoned by King David who had seen her bathing and lusted after her.

Bathsheba was from David's own tribe and the granddaughter of one of David's closest advisors. She was the mother of Solomon, who succeeded David as king, making her the Queen Mother. More

Franz von Stuck (1863–1928)

Susanna and the Elders

Franz von Stuck (1863–1928)

Susanna and the Elders, c. 1904

Oil on canvas

Franz von Stuck (1863–1928)

Susanna and the Elders, c. 1913

Oil on canvas

25 x 63 cm

Franz von Stuck (1863–1928)

Susanna And The Elders, c. 1904

Oil, canvas

98 x 134.5 cm

A fair Hebrew wife named Susanna was falsely accused by lecherous voyeurs. As she bathes in her garden, having sent her attendants away, two lustful elders secretly observe the lovely Susanna. When she makes her way back to her house, they accost her, threatening to claim that she was meeting a young man in the garden unless she agrees to have sex with them.

She refuses to be blackmailed and is arrested and about to be put to death for promiscuity when a young man named Daniel interrupts the proceedings, shouting that the elders should be questioned to prevent the death of an innocent. After being separated, the two men are questioned about details of what they saw, but disagree about the tree under which Susanna supposedly met her lover. In the Greek text, the names of the trees cited by the elders form puns with the sentence given by Daniel. The first says they were under a mastic, and Daniel says that an angel stands ready to cuthim in two. The second says they were under an evergreen oak tree, and Daniel says that an angel stands ready to saw him in two. The great difference in size between a mastic and an oak makes the elders' lie plain to all the observers. The false accusers are put to death, and virtue triumphs. More

Franz von Stuck, 1863 - 1928

THE DRAGON SLAYER

Oil on panel

135 by 126cm., 53¼ by 49½in.

The Dragon Slayer is a particularly charged rendition of an age-old theme. Although most of Stuck's paintings depict scenes from the Antique or the Bible, neither the title The Dragon Slayer nor the iconography reveal the exact story behind the present work. Stuck's fascination with Greek legends suggests the subject to be Perseus and Andromeda, although Medusa's head and Perseus's winged shoes are missing. As early as 1900 Stuck’s contemporary, Lovis Corinth (lots 3, 4 & 5), had painted the hero as a medieval knight rather than a Greek half-god, and his Perseus and Andromeda may have been a possible source of inspiration for the present work. Another obvious influence would have been the biblical story of St. George, who kills the dragon to save a virgin. More

Franz von Stuck, 1863 - 1928

Versuchung (Temptation), c. 1918
Mixed media on canvas
37 3/8 x 42 1/2 in
Museum Villa Stuck

Franz von Stuck, 1863 - 1928
Temptation Of St. Anthony
Oil on board
13.00 in. (33.02 cm.) (height) by 15.00 in. (38.10 cm.) (width)

Saint Anthony or Antony (c. 251–356) was a Christian monk from Egypt, revered since his death as a saint. He is known as the Father of All Monks. His feast day is celebrated on January 17 among the Orthodox and Catholic churches and on Tobi 22 in the Egyptian calendar used by the Coptic Church.

The biography of Anthony's life helped to spread the concept of Christian monasticism, particularly in Western Europe via its Latin translations. He is often erroneously considered the first Christian monk. Anthony was, however, the first to go into the wilderness (about ad 270), a geographical move that seems to have contributed to his renown. Accounts of Anthony enduring supernatural temptation during his sojourn in the Eastern Desert of Egypt inspired the often-repeated subject of the temptation of St. Anthony in Western art and literature.

Anthony is appealed to against infectious diseases, particularly skin diseases. In the past, many such afflictions, including ergotism, erysipelas, and shingles, were historically referred to as St. Anthony's fire. More

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