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| | Alfred Kubin, Austrian Expressionist, Galerie St. Etienne (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05) |
 | | Kubin's (1877-1959) attitude toward life and death is expressed by the drawing of a giant, entitled "The Mountain," 1902, symbolizing the brute, uncaring power of life, very similar to Goya's humanity-trampling "Colossus." Standing on the titan's thigh, a tiny, pick-wielding man chips away at the monster's kneecap. |
| | Kubin's cast of characters includes fabulous monsters, apes, reptiles, mammoths, pits, caverns, treasure, water, jungle, foreign or exotic subjects and settings, haunted or vacant houses, a gnomish earth mother ("The Great Grandmother," 1926) and Goliath (another monster representing brute, unconscious forces conquered by the ever-renewing power of life and consciousness personified in the youthful David). |
| | Kubin's response, in "The Baby Killer," is a literal, realistic expression of the power of death; of psychological and spiritual, as well as physical, murder...a dark Madonna and Child, fitting symbols of the 20th Century's love affair with death and destruction. |
| www.jessieevans-dongray.com /essays/essay020.html (978 words) |
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