Max Klinger

Under a mottled sky near a large body of water, a nude woman flees the lustful pursuit of a monstrous creature who is half man, half swan. This disturbing scene is an episode in a series of prints that form a loose, dreamlike narrative. Deeply influenced by Goya’s use of etching and aquatint, Klinger was also drawn to Goya’s eerily surreal subjects, and adopted his custom of working in series, or “cycles,” to use Klinger’s term. Klinger’s unsettling aquatints, admired by artists including Käthe Kollwitz, lay bare his preoccupation with sexuality, love, death, and gender conflict, reflecting his conviction that prints should show the “dark side of life.”