bavarikon4UDescription
At the end of the 1950s Fritz Koenig (1924-2017) began to deal with the subject of "encounters between couples", which led to depictions of "death and the maiden" in the mid-1970s. Here the artist picks out an element from the round dance of death, the subject that was popular in art and literature from the late Middle Ages to the Enlightenment. Death was omnipresent back then. Wars, plagues and famines claimed the lives of all classes and ages. In this case it affects a young woman who the bone man appears to more as a wooing rather than a relentlessly demanding death. "The two ball heads, the girl's limbs in the form of tapered cylinders and the angular skeleton of death combine in their miniaturism and silent, formal unity to create a sublime impression. Resulting in erotic moments merging with despair, joie de vivre and sadness to form an exciting, touching visual statement" (Stephanie Gilles, Tod und Mädchen, in: Erbprinz trifft Koenig in der Kunst- und Wunderkammer Burg Trausnitz, published by R. Eikelmann and A. Schommers on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name, Landshut, 19 May to 28 October 2018, Munich 2018, p. 10).
Author
Stephanie Gilles M.A.