Heinrich Wilke

HEINRICH WILKE (Berlin, 1869-Güstrow, 1952).
"Wanderung des Menschen, 1909.
Oil on canvas.
Signature with monogram and date in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 140 x 350 cm.

This magnificent and intriguing pictorial composition of Heinrich Wilke is related to the symbolist tradition of the end of the century, as well as to the decadentist literary currents. In the clearing of a thick forest, a strange ritual is taking place, involving beautiful females and emaciated old men who seem to be figures of transit between the world of the living and that of the souls of the fleshless. The artist emphasizes the contrast between the carnal beauty of the naked young woman on whom all eyes are focused (she is awaited by iron chains) and the decadent male bodies. A group of Greek-inspired priestesses wear long cotton tunics and their auburn hair glistens in the moonlight. A palette of cool shades draws indigo and mossy emerald hues from the black night.

Heinrich Wilke was a German portrait, landscape and history painter. Heinrich Wilke studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin from 1887 to 1891 under Hugo Vogel, among others. In 1890, two of his works, depicting the female baths of Pompeii, were awarded prizes and exhibited at the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1891/1892 he continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. In Munich he was part of the circle of the painters Bruno Piglhein, Ludwig Thiersch and Carl Gustaf Hellqvist, about whom he wrote a biography in 1891. His large-scale oil painting Christus am Oelberg, executed in 1892, was exhibited at the Glaspalast in Munich. From 1893 he returned to live in Berlin and worked as a portrait and history painter. In 1892, 1896/1897 and 1901/1902 he made study trips to Italy. In 1900 he became a member of the board of the Allgemeine Deutsche Kunstgenossenschaft and the Verein Berliner Künstler. He was also a representative of the Association of Free Artists and a member of the Association of German Illustrators. Between 1893 and 1916, he was regularly represented with his works at major art exhibitions in Berlin, for example in 1894 with Sokrates, Abschied von seinen Schülern nehmend and in 1910 with Insel der Seligen. In 1917, he was invited by the industrialist Richard van Tongel to Güstrow to execute the commissioned work View of the van Tongel steelworks. He subsequently became a sought-after portrait painter. While Wilke's work in Berlin was characterized by historical subjects and portraits, he later produced a series of landscape paintings of Mecklenburg. The Güstrow Municipal Museum has 29 works by Wilke in its collection.

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