Weite hügelige Landschaft

1889–1893

Years in Rome

He settles in Rome and studies the Italian masters: 15th-century artists and works from antiquity are a revelation to him, and he intensifies his studies of anatomy, the nude and the representation of mass and volume — a very productive time. Other accounts say he arrived in Rome already in 1888.

1894

A member of the Berlin Academy and a trip to Greece

He becomes a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in Berlin; the same year he travels via Vienna to Greece and returns through southern Italy to Paris.

1896

Brahms dedicates the “Four Serious Songs” to Klinger

Johannes Brahms dedicates his “Four Serious Songs” (Opus 121) to Klinger a year before the composer’s death; besides Brahms, Klinger, an accomplished pianist, counts the composer Max Reger among his friends.

1897

“Christ on Olympus” and the debate on modernism

The painting “Christ on Olympus” is shown together with August von Brandis’s “Wedding at Cana” in the Hall of Honour of the Great Munich Art Exhibition, provoking a public controversy about the culture of German modernism.

1897

Professor in Leipzig and a member of the Vienna Secession

He becomes a professor at the Academy of Graphic Arts in Leipzig and a corresponding member of the newly founded Vienna Secession.

1897

Employed by: Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig