Night, from On Death, Part I, Opus XI (Nacht, Vom Tode, Erster Teil, Opus XI) (1889): Art, History and Details

Night, from On Death, Part I, Opus XI (Nacht, Vom Tode, Erster Teil, Opus XI) (1889) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Max Klinger (German, 1857–1920).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

In On Death, Part One, a series of ten etchings, the Symbolist Klinger envisioned the ephemeral nature of life and the suddenness of death, themes that prompted one contemporary critic to call the portfolio a modern "Dance of Death." In Night, the first in the series, a man sits on a bench in an enclosed garden. A moonbeam breaks through the clouds over the sea, and on the path to the right is a lily with a fluttering butterfly. The landscape seems an extension of the figure’s melancholy thoughts, a landscape of the mind.

Object facts

• Title: Night, from On Death, Part I, Opus XI (Nacht, Vom Tode, Erster Teil, Opus XI)
• Date: 1889
• Creator attribution: Max Klinger (German, 1857–1920)
• Culture: Germany, late 19th century
• Type: Print
• Technique: etching and aquatint
• Collection: PR - Etching
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1933.126.1

Collection credit

Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.