Two Heads (The Poachers)

The drama of this work’s creation may be guessed at from the fact that it is the result of a larger work being cut up. This had been Leibl’s largest and most dramatic work. Intending to escape from “the Holbein manner,” Leibl planned a work that would allow him to depict movement, passion, and excitement. The work’s program led by way of numerous preparatory studies to a radical change in style: smoothly applied paint is replaced by broad, energetic brush strokes which show the angularity of the young man’s features to be an expression of anger. Avoiding any binding details that might indicate a sense of time, Leibl simplified the image, heightening its power by the use of stark contrasts of light and dark and through the seeming infinitude of the two mens’ gaze. Corinth, who viewed the picture in Paris just after its completion, and as yet uncut, saw in it what he called a “furor teutonicus.” Nevertheless, for Leibl himself, the work’s unsuccessful spatial structure merely demonstrated the discrepancy between his aims and his abilities.