Forest Pond with Water Lilies, 1899

Carl Moll (1861–1945) studied in Christian Griepenkerl’s (1839–1916) class at Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts in 1880/01, though he formed his artistic views in the circle around Emil Jakob Schindler (1842–1892). After Schindler’s death in 1892, he performed great service as a biographer and exhibition organizer to honor posthumously his teacher, and married the latter’s wife Anna. At the founding of the Vienna Secession in 1897, Moll acted as its vice-president, though in 1905 he resigned from the association together with the Klimt Group. Close ups of still waters as a motif not only occupied Moll and his fellow-student Gustav Klimt (1862–1918); likewise, the Belgian Fernand Khnopff (1858–1921) and numerous other painters and photographers around 1900. It was revealed—symbolistically understood—as a hoard of dull presentiments, or as a blurred reflection of “nature as teacher”.

IR, 2019