The German title for this lithograph is Leid, meaning “sorrow.” The Austrian Symbolist Maximilian Lenz does not make the cause of the young woman’s distress explicit. On a dusky night, she lies naked before a body of water, gazing away from us toward a palatial building. If it weren’t for the soft reflection, we could barely make out the building due to the low hanging branches that seem to envelop us along with the girl.
The dream-like quality of this image is reinforced by the gauzy texture and the slatey color of the ink. Symbolist artists often produce dreamy—or nightmarish—images that leave us to wonder about their meaning.
