Begegnung

'Begegnung' (Encounter), painted in 1921, represents Stuck's late career, when his Symbolist mythology was beginning to feel dated against the backdrop of Expressionism and the Neue Sachlichkeit emerging in Germany after World War I. An 'encounter' in Stuck's symbolic vocabulary could denote a meeting between humans and supernatural beings, between mortals and gods, or between figures whose confrontation carries erotic or threatening charge. By 1921 Stuck was sixty-one and had been teaching at the Munich Academy for nearly thirty years; his students had included Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee, who had moved far beyond his own aesthetic territory. The Bavarian State Painting Collections hold this work alongside a substantial group of Stuck's canvases, reflecting the sustained Munich interest in preserving its most celebrated Symbolist painter's output.

Late Stuck retains his assured draftsmanship and tonal control but shows slightly softer edges than his work of the 1890s and 1900s. The palette may be warmer and the mythological drama somewhat reduced in intensity, reflecting both the artist's age and the changed cultural climate.