Gudmund Herman Hentze

GUDMUND HERMAN PETER HENTZE (1875-1948).
"Erotic Composition".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 101 x 61 cm; 119 x 81 cm (frame).

Gudmund Hentze abandons a language inspired by the English Pre-Raphaelites, as well as German and French artists. Trained at the Academy of Arts from 1893 to 1894 and at the Zahrtmann School of Arts from 1897 to 1898, he furthered his studies in Florence and held exhibitions in Berlin, Brussels and Stockholm, as well as in Copenhagen. He complemented easel painting with book illustration, miniature painting, drawings for embroidery. He also dedicated himself to metal works such as cutlery and ashtrays and made interior decorations. He made jewelry designs for the workshop of Mogens Ballin. And from 1904 he also made drawings for jewelry for Georg Jensen's workshop.
The term Pre-Raphaelite comes from his association with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, founded in 1849 by an influential group of 19th century avant-garde painters associated with Ruskin, including William Holman Hunt, William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Thomas Woolner, and F. G. Stephens. This group of artists joined forces to create a school that would break with the prevailing style which they considered an "insubstantial academicism of contemporary art". The subjects of their paintings were almost always historical and religious, but their interest in naturalistic representation distinguished them from the academic tradition. The Pre-Raphaelites advocated a pure, romantic art, influenced by medieval themes and the aesthetics of those artists before Raphael, whose art they considered full of feeling, spiritual and simple. Thus, they create atmospheres of mysticism and ecstasy, like the one we can see in this work, where their feelings are transplanted to the expression of the faces and the poetic outline of their lines.