Albin Egger-Lienz

 Albin Egger-Lienz, Self-Portrait, 1923

Albin Egger-Lienz (1868-1926) was born near Lienz, Tyrol. His first teacher was his father who was a church painter. From 1884 to 1993 Egger-Lienz studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he was influenced by Franz Defregger and French painter Jean-François Millet. From 1894, Egger-Lienz worked as a free artist in Munich. In 1899, he moved to Vienna and married Laura von Möllwals. He was co-founder of the Hagenbund, an Austrian group of artists that was active until 1930.

Albin Egger-Lienz, The Dance of Death Anno Nine, 1906 

 

In 1909, Egger-Lienz became a member of the Vienna Secession, but quit his membership seven years later. One year later, he was proposed a professorship at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. This was however prevented by the Archduke Franz Ferdinand (whose assassination in Sarajewo was one of the causes of WW1) because of Egger Lienz' membership in the Secession, and because his above shown painting The Dance of Death Anno Nine (which had been shown in an exhibition for the 60th jubilee of Emperor Franz Joseph), was considered to be not patriotic enough, and, given the advanced age of the honored Kaiser, could not be regarded as "pious".

Albin Egger-Lienz, The Old, 1914

In Egger-Lienz' oeuvre, the motif of death occupies a central position. In The Dance of Death, Death leads on the group of farmers. In the background is the Tyrolean struggle for freedom in 1809, but the theme is detached from the historic event and conceived as a monumental allegory. The four walk on as if they were in a dream, only half in possession of themselves, as if they had a premonition of their destiny. Leon Trotsky remembered an exhibition of the Vienna Secession in 1909: "The most prominent participant in the exhibition was Albin Egger-Lienz. Remember his name! His "Haspinger" [Johann Haspinger was a Catholic priest and leader of the Tyrolese revolt against Napoleon], his "Sowers" are unquestionably perfect paintings". And Carlo Carrà, one of the most important theorists of Italian Futurism, described him as one of three prominent artists of the XIII. International Art Exhibition in Venice.

 

Albin Egger-Lienz, Haspinger, 1908

In 1912, Egger-Lienz started teaching at the art college of Weimar (one of his students was Peter Drömmer), but, in 1913, settled down in St. Justina (near Bolzano, South Tyrol), where he worked as a free artist. He taught at the school of arts in Klausen (Chiusa). From 1914 to 1917, Egger-Lienz was called up for military service. In this time he produced his masterpieces such as For the Nameless:

Albin Egger-Lienz, For the Nameless, 1914

Battlefield painters have the assignment of documenting everyday life in the tactical struggle for position and of recording the heroic deeds of soldiers. This was not the case with Egger-Lienz:. One could claim to see an element of heroisation in the lithograph 1915. However, in Field of Corpses dead corpses pile up in the trench, and the deformed expressivity of the bodies in Finale is an outcry against war:

Albin Egger-Lienz, Finale, 1918

Egger-Lienz also devoted his work to the tragedy of women whose men remained in the field, as in Women of War (below). The Mothers (1922) only receive hope under the sign of the crucified Saviour. The consequences of war are communicated by The Blinded (1918) in their baleful hopeless clumsiness.

 

Albin Egger-Lienz, Women of War, 1918

 

In 1918, Egger-Lienz turned down a professorship at the Vienna Academy. In his last years, he was declared honorary doctor of the Universitiy of Innsbruck. Albin Egger-Lienz died in St. Giustina, now a part of Italy, on November 4, 1926. You can see more works of Egger-Lienz at Zeno.

Georg Trakl - Grandsons Unborn

Georg Trakl, The Ravens, 1913

Over the black crevice
at noon the ravens rush with rusty cries.
Their shadows touch the deer’s back
and at times they loom in gnarled rest.

O how they derange the brown stillness,
in the one acre itself entranced,
like a woman married to grave premonitions,
and at times you can hear them bicker

about a corpse they sniffed-out somewhere,
and sharply they bend their flight towards north
and dwindle away like a funeral
march in the air, shivering with bliss.

 Otto Dix, Sunrise, 1913

One year after Georg Trakl's poem and Otto Dix' painting, visions of the impeding disaster, both men were called to the military. World War I had begun. In July 1914, shortly before being drafted by the Austro-Hungarian Army, Georg Trakl received a large monetary gift from the then unknown philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein who was distributing his enourmous inheritance to artists. Unfortunately, Trakl never was able to use the money. His emotional instability became worse under the strains of war and he was hospitalized numerous times as a result of depression and suicide attempts. After several bloody defeats at the hands of the Russians, Trakl was left to single handedly care for 90 wounded men in a barn near Grodek where he wrote the following poem:

 Albin Egger-Lienz, Den Namenlosen (Those Who Have Lost Their Names), 1914

Georg Trakl, Grodek, 1914

At evening the autumn woodlands ring
With deadly weapons. Over the golden plains
And lakes of blue, the sun
More darkly rolls. The night surrounds
 
Warriors dying and the wild lament
Of their fragmented mouths.
Yet silently there gather in the willow combe
Red clouds inhabited by an angry god,
 
Shed blood, and the chill of the moon.
All roads lead to black decay.
Under golden branching of the night and stars
A sister's shadow sways through the still grove
 
To greet the heroes' spirits, the bloodied heads.
And softly in the reeds Autumn's dark flutes resound.
O prouder mourning! - You brazen altars,
The spirit's hot flame is fed now by a tremendous pain:
The grandsons, unborn.

Trakl could not adequately relieve the pain of his patients on his own, and he witnessed the splattered brains of one soldier who shot himself. Trakl then went outside, and after seeing some of the local Ruthenians hanging from trees, suffered a mental breakdown and threatened to shoot himself. In October, Trakl was hospitalized in Cracow, Poland, and received a visit from a friend who encouraged Trakl to send for his benefactor Wittgenstein. Unfortunately, Trakl injected himself with a fatal dose of cocaine, a probable suicide attempt, on November 3, 1914, three days before Wittgenstein arrived (three years later, Trakl's sister Grete shot herself at a party after failing to overcome her drug addiction).

Telegram of Georg Trakl to his publisher Kurt Wolff: "I should be very delighted if you would send me a copy of my new book Sebastian in Dream. Being ill and hospitalized here in Garnisonsspital Krakau - Georg Trakl."

Kurt Wolff published Sebastian in Dream in 1915, which would garner Trakl a small, but loyal following in Germany and Austria.  Wittgenstein's opinion of Trakl's poems was this: "I do not understand them; but their tone pleases me. It is the tone of true genius."

You can find the above telegram (and countless other treasures) in the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library of Yale University.