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Electricity (A plate from Gerlach's Allegories) by Ignatius Taschner

Electricity (A plate from Gerlachs Allegories) by Ignatius Taschner

Electricity (A plate from Gerlach's Allegories)

Ignatius Taschner

Title

Electricity (A plate from Gerlach's Allegories)

 
Artist

Ignatius Taschner

  1871 - 1913 (biography)
Year
1898  
Technique
color lithograph 
Image Size
8 3/4 x 10 3/4" image size 
Signature
signed on the stone, within image lower right 
Edition Size
unstated 
Annotations
printed in lower margin: Electricite / Elektricitat / Electricity / Gesetzich geschiitzt. Depose. Registered / No. 95 / Verlag von Gerlach & Schenk in Wien. printed in upper margin: Allegories. / Gerlach's Allegorien. / Allegories. 
Reference
Plate 95 from the portfolio "Allegorien Neue Folge"; edited by Martin Gerlach and published by Gerlach & Schenk Vienna. 
Paper
thick antique-white wove 
State
published 
Publisher
Verlag von Gerlach & Schenk in Wien. 
Inventory ID
19799 
Price
SOLD
Description

One of Martin Gerlach's Allegories, Plate 95 from the Vienna Secessionist portfolio "Allegorien Neue Folge"; edited by Martin Gerlach and published by Gerlach & Schenk Vienna in 1898.

A moving, humanist portrayal of afterlife, with the figures of a man and a woman rising from their earthly bonds and embracing in the air above their respective tombs, like storm clouds clashing to produce electricity, trees bowing in the wind.

Symbolism was in its heyday in the late 19th century and Taschner’s work in every form - sculpture, architecture, metalsmithing, printmaking, and more - often explored the themes of life, death, and love through a poetic lens. The two figures in “Electricity” seem joyous to reach one another yet again; one could view this work as not a tale of the end of life but a hopeful one of a new beginning.