Memorial Work for My Bride Who Died in 1903, 1903

In his 1903 India ink drawing Memorial Work for My Bride Who Died in 1903, the Austrian draftsman, graphic artist, painter and writer Alfred Kubin (1877–1959) presents a mysterious, touching and oppressive image that seems almost frozen: In a crypt-like room with bare, high walls and a floor paved with big polygonal stone or terracotta tiles, a figure shrouded in a wide garment of white decorated with a dark pattern is sitting on a high sarcophagus with a steep, roof-like lid positioned at the center of the hall. The figure is turned to the side, averting her face from the observers. A lamp hanging from the ceiling in the background is illuminating the room in a pale light. All we see is the back of the figure’s dark head, the fabric of a cloak flowing over the coffin and a veil pouring out from under the cloak, carefully arranged and ending in two half-round arches in the center of the room. The figure is Kubin’s great love, Emmy Bayer, whom he had wanted to marry but who fell ill while visiting Kubin in Munich in 1903 and died ten days later: “As I stood next to the body, I realized all of a sudden that for me the highest bliss had vanished for all times,” the artist related.

MH, 2021