Wednesday 24 November 2010

Weird Wednesday



One more each from my books on Max Klinger and Alfred Kubin before I find space for them on my shelves. Each sinister image is on a similar theme - the exploitation of women by men. This is fairly obvious in the top image, Klinger's 'Caught', one of his 1884 cycle called A Life. Kubin, typically, goes much further in his horrible 'One Woman For All', dating from 1900-01, with those bestial sub-humans gloating over the bound and naked woman, who has apparently been offered to them.

Klinger was a big influence on Kubin and I noticed that another of the A Life series is entitled 'For All' - it shows the girl as a dancer on a floodlit stage, the admiration of all. Then she is 'Caught' (and ultimately falls into debauchery, poverty and a lonely death). Kubin appears to have combined the two concepts grotesquely, replacing the leering dandies with beast men who would out-Hyde Mr Hyde.

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