Paraphrase on the Finding of a Glove
Paraphrase on the Finding of a Glove is a set of ten etchings by Max Klinger. The series of prints were made by twenty-one-year-old Klinger in 1877-78 and first exhibited at the Berlin Art Association in 1878. Then later exhibited in a mixed technique of engraving, etching, and aquatint in 1881. The etchings are a part of the Symbolism (art) movement and holds a story of love, death, and fantasy in which Klinger is most known for.
The Paraphrase on the Finding of a Glove etchings are Klinger's first work of narrative sequence. He displays real and imaginary scenes that correspond through dreamlike understanding.
Brief Summary
The etchings are all individually named in German. The etchings start accordingly:
- Ort (Place)
- Handlung (Action)
- Wünsche (Yearnings)
- Rettung (Rescue)
- Triumph
- Huldigung (Homage)
- Ängste (Anxieties)
- Ruhe (Repose)
- Entführung (Abduction)
- Amor (Cupid)
The cycle of etchings begin at a skating rink in Berlin where Klinger himself is in the etching and admires a young woman. As the story goes on, people are skating and the young woman happens to drop her glove. Klinger swoops in to pick it up losing his hat in the process. The glove becomes a fetish item and possesses a power over Klinger. Then, the story starts to change into imaginative dimensions in which the intimate and potently sexualized object triggers a series of elaborate visions of longing and loss, conveyed through hallucinatory distortions of scale and jarring juxtapositions.[1] The glove torments Klinger because he doesn't ever return the glove to the woman and keeps it to himself. Klinger gives the glove personality in the etchings. The glove will get away from Klinger multiple times in different scenes were he struggles to get it back. The glove also gives Klinger nightmares in the etching (Anxieties) in which we see a etching in the style of Goya. The glove eventually gets stolen from him in the night by a dreamlike creature in (Abduction). In the last etching (Cupid) the viewer sees the glove laying down on a table with Cupid sitting next to it.
This symbolic piece of art can have multiple meanings. One example is that the glove was a symbol of love and showed how it can be powerful and overwhelming. Also, the Paraphrase on the Finding of a Glove relates and predates Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation Of Dreams.
References
- ↑ Hess, "German Expressionist Digital Archive Project,"
Hess, Heather. "German Expressionist Digital Archive Project" The Museum Of Modern Art 2011.