Study of Gutted Pigs

Throughout his output, Lovis Corinth explored questions concerned with ugliness, deformation and violence. On the one hand, he uses the traditional motif of warning, when he points out the transience of human existence, while, on the other, he opens up the field of non−stylized reality. The motif of “carved−up” pigs at the slaughterhouse has had its tradition in art, for examples in works by Rembrandt. Corinth’s treatment radically differs from that tradition. The artist regards a chunk of meat as something subject to waste and inexorable decay. The strategy of “shocking”, known in the works of earlier decadent artists, is elaborated in this picture and changed into a physical attack on the viewer, who is no longer able to maintain the usual aesthetic distance. Later Expressionist artists, whose efforts Corinth had heralded and influenced in many ways, took their creativity in this direction.