Death, power and paranoia: painting that shocked German society finally returns to Berlin | Art

Wrapped in an ermine fur cloak and wearing a serrated iron crown, the massive skeleton rests one foot on a globe and topples the royal throne with a dramatic flick of his ivory wrist.

German artist Hermione von Preuschen’s symbolic 1887 painting titled Mors Imperator (“Death Reigns”) was intended to express the transience of fame and power. However, officials feared that the painting might be seen as mocking the aging German Emperor Wilhelm I, who had recently turned 90, and refused to accept the painting’s submission to the Berlin Academy of Arts’ annual exhibition that year.

More than 100 years after the painting’s rejection and subsequent display in the 19th-century equivalent of a temporary gallery caused a stir in Berlin society, the Morse Imperator is returning to the German capital. From Sunday until mid-November, the 2.5 meter by 1.3 meter painting will finally be exhibited in a government institution, the Alte Nationalgalerie museum.

The scandal in von Preuschen’s work shows how prone single-ruler autocracies can be to paranoia about hidden meanings in art. According to the curator of the Berlin exhibition, it was not an attack on the monarchy that the artist intended, nor how it was perceived by its alleged target.

Born in Darmstadt in 1854, von Preuschen was a poet, world traveler and painter known for his large-scale and flamboyant historical still life paintings. She gave an impassioned speech at the 1896 International Women’s Congress in Berlin, calling for women to be allowed to study in art academies.

“Hermione von Preuschen was brave, self-confident, and one of the first advocates of women’s emancipation,” said art historian Birgit Verwiebe. “But he was not a political figure and there is no record of him having anti-monarchist instincts. After all, he himself came from a noble family.”

He added that in-depth studies of the painting did not reveal any indication of ulterior motives regarding the identity of the German kaiser of the skeleton. The coat of arms on the throne was a creative invention, comparable at best to the French royal emblem. It was determined by researchers that the crown, whose lower half consisted of precious stones falling to the ground, was based on the French royal crown in the Louvre.

Morse Imperator was originally planned to form the first part of a cycle of 10 paintings depicting the themes of life, death and love, and to be compared directly to a painting called Regina Vitae, Queen of Life, in the academy exhibition. However, the second painting was not completed by the deadline.

Devastated by the rejection, the 33-year-old painter wrote directly to the German emperor and the Prussian king to explain his intentions. Wilhelm’s secretary responded by saying that the monarch had no problem with the subject of his painting and that the decision was up to those who evaluated the aesthetic value of the painting.

However, the academy later changed its tune and said it rejected the painting on the grounds that it lacked artistic merit and considered the painting an “unartistic expression of a distorted thought.”

Von Preuschen escalated the situation further by publishing a letter about the incident in a Berlin newspaper and renting a shop on Leipziger Strasse in central Berlin to display the painting, hiding it behind curtains so that it could be displayed with dramatic flourish. Despite an entrance fee equivalent to 8 euros today, the exhibition became the talk of the town and made the artist famous overnight.

Mors Imperator was sold to a Swiss businessman in 1892. After von Preuschen’s death in 1918, his remaining works were donated by his daughters to a small neighborhood museum in Berlin’s Alt-Mariendorf district; A 2013 retrospective of his work at the museum included a copy of the scandalous painting. It was loaned to the Alte Nationalgalerie for the new exhibition.

“Von Preuschen was an intelligent, highly educated but also deeply emotional person who spent his life grappling with big questions about life, death and fate,” Verwiebe said. “Morse Imperator was a picture from the heart.”

The main message of the painting, that death invalidates earthly authority, would also be true; Wilhelm I did indeed die on March 9, 1888, shortly after the painting was completed. This year is known as the “Year of the Three Emperors” in Germany because Wilhelm’s son, Henry III. When Frederick came to the throne, he was terminally ill with throat cancer. He would die in 99 days.