Red Christ 1922

Lovis Corinth made this expressionistic painting called ‘Red Christ’ with oil on canvas, but when, I’m not sure. It’s a painting slathered in thick strokes of mostly white and red. It looks like a painting born out of struggle, perhaps even suffering, where the artist is working through something rather than trying to represent anything in particular. I feel like Corinth might have been wrestling with the very idea of portraying such a loaded subject. Look how the raw physicality of the paint captures a figure nailed to a cross, a figure, I suppose, of Christ. There's a real tension here, a push and pull between representation and abstraction. It’s like the artist is not just showing us an image but trying to convey something much more profound about pain, belief, and maybe even doubt.