Frauengruppe (Freundinnen, große Fassung)

Lovis Corinth was among the most vital figures in German painting at the turn of the century, and Frauengruppe (Freundinnen, große Fassung) — a group of women friends — exemplifies his vigorous engagement with the female figure in an informal register. Trained in Paris and Munich, Corinth absorbed Impressionist colour while retaining a German Realist sense of material presence. His group compositions of women balance social observation with undisguised painterly pleasure in the human form. Now in the Galerie Neue Meister in Dresden, the painting represents the expressive energy he brought to secular, un-idealised subjects.

Corinth's brushwork is emphatically physical — broad, assertive strokes that model form through impasto rather than careful blending. The palette is warm, with skin tones built up in layered direct paint that conveys corporal presence. The composition favours closeness and informality over formal arrangement.