Cain

The story in the Old Testament of Cain’s murder of his brother Abel stands for man’s cruelty toward his fellow men. Corinth returned to the theme, which interested him as of 1895, in 1917, at the climax of the First World War, when against all common sense, the imminent victory of the German people was still being proclaimed. Corinth presents the moment shortly after the murder. Cain seeks to hide his dead brother under stones, but God is not to be deceived: “The voice of your brother’s blood cries to me from the ground.” The black birds seem to visualize that voice. The artist chooses the perspective of the person lying on the ground, adopting the role of the victim – at a time when Germany was threatened with defeat. The expressive style, which is on occasion attributed to his having suffered a stroke in 1911, gives the image such emphasis and can be seen as the reason why it became so highly valued in the era of the Junge Wilde, a German art movement in the 1980s, and was then acquired. (Kathrin DuBois)