Anemonen

Anemonen was painted by Corinth in 1910, probably during his stay at the Niedorf estate in Mecklenburg, an area he visited regularly throughout his life, and where he created some of his most inspired oils. Corinth's trademark bold, powerful brushstrokes first appear in his still-lives of 1910 when he established his reputation as the most original and dynamic painter of the German Impressionist triumvirate. Towards the end of the first decade of the century, 'Corinth stretched the stylistic innovations of Impressionism to new expressive ends. While Max Liebermann and Lesser Ury remain firmly rooted in the Nineteenth Century tradition, Corinth, despite himself, heralds the future'. (J. Lloyd, Lovis Corinth and his Times, Exh. Cat., Goethe Institute of London, March-April 1997, p. IV). Corinth's interest in French Impressionism and the work of France's leading artists of the late Nineteenth Century is very apparent in the present picture. Here there is a clear debt to Manet whose still lives Corinth particularly admired. Compare Manet's fine still life of 1880 to the present picture (fig. 1)

Such chromatic exuberance is typical of Corinth's work of this period and contrasts significantly with his later still-lives which are characterised by darker colours, applied by broader, less descriptive strokes.