Hamlet and Horatio in the Churchyard by Victor Müller

Hamlet and Horatio in the Churchyard 1868

painting, oil-paint, oil, canvas

portrait

narrative-art

painting

oil-paint

oil

landscape

figuration

oil painting

canvas

underpainting

muted green

romanticism

painting painterly

genre-painting

history-painting

realism

"Hamlet and Horatio in the Churchyard" (1868) by Victor Müller (1830-unknown) depicts a scene from Shakespeare's Hamlet. Hamlet, in somber attire, sits under a birch tree with his loyal friend Horatio, in a somber landscape. The scene is a poignant reflection on the themes of mortality and contemplation, with the figure of Hamlet contemplating the skull of Yorick, a deceased jester. The painting, currently in the Städel Museum, exemplifies the Romantic fascination with Shakespeare's works and the macabre elements of Gothic literature.

Comments

stadelmuseum over 1 year ago

⋮

An art commission: in 1868 Victor Müller signed a contract with Bruckmann, the Munich art publishers, concerning his involvement in a Shakespeare cycle. The paintings were to be sold and their reproductions distributed at the same time in large numbers via the trade. It was obvious that the artist would have to meet the expectations of the conservative purchasing sector. "The overall result is a vast excess of emotions. Melancholy, elegiac, smug, unhappy: in short, decidedly weird," complained Müller about his work. This was not the right place for radical picture solutions.