Helle Rosen 1915

Lovis Corinth made this painting called Helle Rosen with oil on canvas sometime around 1915. The colours are just scrubbed on! Pink, red, white, yellow, black. There’s a real sense of process, of something built up stroke by stroke. Corinth really lets you see the physicality of the medium. It’s not trying to hide its working, like you see in so much painting that’s trying to fool you into thinking it’s a photograph. Here, the paint is so thick you can almost see the marks of the brush. Look at the rose in the middle, the way the reds bleed into the whites and yellows to make it almost glow. It’s like Corinth is trying to capture not just the look of the roses, but the feeling they evoke, that mixture of beauty and decay. I’m reminded of Soutine, and the way he could make paintings out of the most ugly subject matter. Corinth does something similar here. It’s not just a pretty picture, it's alive!