{"id":421159,"date":"2024-10-25T14:55:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T18:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.1stdibs.com\/blogs\/the-study\/?p=421159"},"modified":"2024-10-31T12:20:15","modified_gmt":"2024-10-31T16:20:15","slug":"gothic-modern-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.1stdibs.com\/blogs\/the-study\/gothic-modern-art\/","title":{"rendered":"See the Spooky Side of European Modern Art"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"The
The Garden of Death<\/em>, 1896, by Hugo Simberg, is included in the show \u201cGothic Modern: From Darkness to Light,\u201d at the Ateneum Art Museum, in Helsinki. Photo by Jenni Nurminen, courtesy of the Finnish National Gallery<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

A groundbreaking new exhibition is shining a forensic black light on the influence of macabre Gothic art<\/a> on some of the most radical painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGothic Modern: From Darkness to Light<\/a>,\u201d at Helsinki\u2019s Ateneum Art Museum through January 26, 2025, reframes the origins of modernism, tracing how artists like Edvard Munch<\/a>, K\u00e4the Kollwitz<\/a> and Vincent van Gogh<\/a> drew inspiration from the haunting, mystical imagery of medieval<\/a> and Renaissance<\/a> Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The show presents 200-plus paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures and works of decorative art, bringing together modern<\/a> masters and their Dark Ages progenitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through Expressionist<\/a> pieces like Munch\u2019s stained-glass-inspired masterpiece The Sun<\/em> (1910\u201313) and Kollwitz\u2019s wrenching Death and Woman<\/em> (1910), the exhibition uncovers how these artists turned to the Gothic not just as a formal influence but as a wellspring of revolutionary visions of sexuality, war, disease and social norms.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Eye<\/a>
Eye in Eye<\/em>, 1899\u20131900, by Edvard Munch<\/a>. Photo by Ove Kvavik, courtesy of the Munch Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Older Northern European art, with its vivid expressions of Christian devotion and death\u2019s inevitability, was in the zeitgeist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere were many exhibitions touring Europe at the time, and modern artists began to be interested in Lucas Cranach the Elder<\/a>, Albrecht D\u00fcrer<\/a> and Hans Holbein<\/a>,\u201d explains the Ateneum\u2019s director, Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff, who cocurated the show with art historian Juliet Simpson. \u201cBerlin became the new hub for Nordic artists, and of course, Berlin\u2019s museums were a great source of inspiration as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Organized thematically, \u201cGothic Modern\u201d creates striking dialogues across the centuries. In one space, Cranach the Elder\u2019s lusty Adam and Eve paintings from the 16th century are placed in conversation with modern reimaginings by artists like Hugo Simberg, Ejnar Nielsen and Max Beckmann<\/a>, highlighting an enduring fascination with the entangled realms of the sexual and the spiritual.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Self-Portrait<\/a>
Self-Portrait with Death Playing the Fiddle<\/em>, 1872, by Arnold B\u00f6cklin<\/a>. Photo by Andres Kilger, courtesy of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cModern artists modified the iconography and altered the meaning of religious themes quite freely, especially Edvard Munch and Helene Schjerfbeck,\u201d says von Bonsdorff. Others grew quite religious themselves. \u201cMarianne Stokes became interested in Catholic Christianity in her later life. Also, Gustave Van de Woestyne went to a monastery for a short stay but left to continue as a painter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elsewhere, the mocking specters of Holbein\u2019s \u201cDance of Death\u201d series (1523\u201325) find echoes in Van Gogh\u2019s Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette<\/em> (1885\u201386), Arnold B\u00f6cklin<\/a>\u2019s Self-Portrait with Death Playing the Fiddle<\/em> (1872) and Kollwitz\u2019s terrifying depictions of human suffering on an industrial scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Simpson, the show demonstrates how Gothic themes remain relevant but resonate differently in different time periods and cultures. \u201cIt\u2019s about adaptation, and it\u2019s about the power of the Gothic to work, be reimagined across borders, but also to be adaptable to particular, even local, cultures of place and identity,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Visitors to the \u201cGothic Modern\u201d exhibition take in the painting Resurrection<\/em>, 1906, by Magnus Enckell. Photo by Hannu Pakarinen<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Indeed, the exhibition challenges the conventional view of modernism\u2019s linear, break-from-the-past progression, revealing how artists throughout Europe were tapping into a shared Gothic visual language to grapple with the tumult of their time. In an era marked by the rise of nationalism, industrialization and world war, the Gothic offered a time-tested means to express the darker currents of the human experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following its debut in Helsinki, \u201cGothic Modern\u201d will travel to the National Museum<\/a> in Oslo and the Albertina Museum<\/a> in Vienna, offering audiences across the continent a new perspective on the gore-obsessed roots of modern art. Likewise, as the curators point out, in our current age of uncertainty and social unrest, the answers we seek may lie not in the future but in the shadowy recesses of the medieval past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below, we take a closer look at a few Gothic-modern innovators and their 15th-century forebears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Albrecht D\u00fcrer (1471\u20131528, Germany)<\/h2>\n\n\n
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\"The<\/a>
The Cook and his Wife<\/em>, 1496, by Albrecht D\u00fcrer<\/a>. Photo by Jenni Nurminen, courtesy of the Finnish National Gallery<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

One of the most celebrated Northern Renaissance<\/a> painters and printmakers, D\u00fcrer worked in a naturalistic style similar to that of his Italian contemporaries, while using the darker tones and subject matter of his fellow Germans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

D\u00fcrer\u2019s haunting woodcuts and engravings<\/a>, such as his \u201cApocalypse\u201d series, present unsettling images of death, the supernatural and societal upheaval, which impacted later generations of European artists as they grappled with the traumas inflicted by rapid modernization and weapons of mass destruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472\u20131553, Germany)<\/h2>\n\n\n
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\"Lucretia,<\/a>
Lucretia<\/em>, 1530, by Lucas Cranach the Elder<\/a>. Photo by Hannu Aaltonen, courtesy of the Finnish National Gallery<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

In his provocative Adam and Eve<\/em> diptych (ca. 1530), Cranach, a giant of the Northern Renaissance, explored the intersection of eroticism and religion. His boldly sensual depictions of humanity\u2019s first lovers, sprinkled with a dash of the demonic, set the stage for modern artists to revisit these primordial themes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cranach\u2019s 1530 nude depiction of the ancient Roman noblewoman Lucretia in the process of stabbing herself to death similarly combines scariness and seduction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This fascination with mingling the sacred with the profane was picked up by later generations as they contemplated relationship roles in the age of psychoanalysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hans Holbein the Younger (circa 1497\u20131543, Germany)<\/h2>\n\n\n
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\"A<\/a>
The Noblewoman<\/em>, from the “Dance of Death” series, 1525\u201340, by Hans Holbein the Younger. Photo courtesy of the Albertina<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Best known for his penetrating portraits of English royals and aristocrats, Holbein also created the seminal \u201cDance of Death\u201d series between 1523 and 1525, offering a darkly comic take on the danse macabre<\/em> motif.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His smiling skeletons, indiscriminately ushering everyone from farmers to nobles to their graves, served as a touchstone for modern artists like Vincent van Gogh and K\u00e4the Kollwitz as they explored the absurdity of life on earth and its inevitable end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Vincent van Gogh (1853\u201390, Netherlands)<\/h2>\n\n\n
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\"Head<\/a>
Head of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette<\/em>, 1886, by Vincent van Gogh. Photo courtesy of the Van Gogh Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Van Gogh\u2019s wry Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette<\/em> (1886) echoes Gothic artists\u2019 fascination with mortality. Evoking Holbein\u2019s \u201cDance of Death,\u201d the grinning skeleton embodies Gothic art\u2019s capacity to find both the comic and the tragic in life\u2019s journey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Gogh’s well-known intense, emotive style \u2014 saturated with a sense of the supernatural \u2014 was hugely influential on later Expressionist painters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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K\u00e4the Kollwitz (1867\u20131945, Germany)<\/h2>\n\n\n
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\"Hunger,<\/a>
Hunger<\/em>, 1923, by K\u00e4the Kollwitz<\/a>. Photo by Jenni Nurminen, courtesy of the Finnish National Gallery<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

A master of German Expressionism, Kollwitz channeled Gothic art\u2019s emotional power in raw and heart-smashing works like The Downtrodden<\/em> (1900), The Survivors<\/em> (1923) <\/em>and Hunger<\/em> (1923).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her stark depictions of starvation, poverty and collective struggle use Gothic visual themes to offer a poignant commentary on social injustice in the early 20th century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Marianne Stokes (1855\u20131927, Austria)<\/h2>\n\n\n
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\"Madonna
Madonna and Child<\/em>, 1909, by Marianne Stokes. Photo courtesy of Wolverhampton Art Gallery<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Typically labeled a Pre-Raphaelite<\/a>, Stokes is reappraised in \u201cGothic Modern\u201d as a conduit for the Gothic influence on modernism. Paintings like Madonna and Child<\/em> (1909) and Death and the Maiden<\/em> (ca. 1908) fuse Catholic iconography with a distinctly modern sensibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stokes\u2019s work demonstrates how medieval imagery provided artists with a rich visual language with which to explore evolving notions of gender, identity and transcendence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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James Ensor (1860\u20131949, Belgium)<\/h2>\n\n\n
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\"Skeletons<\/a>
Skeletons warming themselves<\/em>, 1895, by James Ensor<\/a>.<\/strong> Photo by Jenni Nurminen, courtesy of the Finnish National Gallery<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Belgian Expressionist Ensor<\/a>\u2019s carnivalesque paintings channeled the Gothic fascination with the grotesque and the darkly fantastical. Works like Entry of Christ into Brussels in 1889<\/em> merge religious iconography with a subversive black humor, evoking the medieval tradition of the \u201cdance of death\u201d in a cacophony of eerie masks, skeletons and costumed figures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ensor\u2019s hallucinatory, nightmarish style offers a Belgian take on Gothic art\u2019s ability to unsettle and provoke, introducing a sense of the uncanny and the irrational to the world of modernism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Edvard Munch (1863\u20131944, Norway)<\/h2>\n\n\n
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\"By<\/a>
By the Deathbed<\/em>, 1896, by Edvard Munch. Photo by Aleks Talve, courtesy of the Finnish National Gallery<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Long viewed as a solitary Nordic pioneer of Expressionism, Munch is reassessed in \u201cGothic Modern\u201d as an artist steeped in the visual language of medieval and Renaissance Northern Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Works like By the Deathbed<\/em> (1896) and Eye in Eye<\/em> (1899\u20131900) reveal his deep engagement with themes of death, the psyche and the spiritual.<\/p>\n\n\n\t

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