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(2) Gabriel (Cornelius), Ritter von Max
(b Prague, 23 Aug 1840; d Munich, 24 Nov 1915). Painter, illustrator and teacher, nephew of (1) Emanuel Max. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Prague (1855–8), and the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Vienna (1858–61), and under Karl Theodor von Piloty at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Munich (1863/4–7). He settled in Munich, where he opened a private school of painting in 1869. His paintings and book illustrations of the second half of the 1860s show an affinity with the late Romanticist movement. He illustrated works of German literature by Wieland, Lenau and Schiller, as well as producing illustrations for Goethe’s Faust (1867–8; Prague, N.G., Kinsky Palace). As well as literary and even musical sources, religious themes frequently occur in his work, including his first great success, the Crucifixion of St Julie (1867; ex-Sotheby’s, London, 1976). In numerous female figures and portraits Max explored the tension between the inner state and the charm of the physical appearance or surroundings of his subjects. His interest in the artistic perception of relationships between physical reality and the spiritual world led him to a study of anthropology and contemporary occultism and mysticism, as in his portraits of the Seer of Prevorst (Prague, N.G., Convent of St Agnes) and the Ecstasy of Katerina Emmerichová (1885; Munich, Neue Pin.).
Part of the Max family
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