The captivating fin-de-siècle paintings of Munich's master painter Franz von Stuck are marked by his intense fascination with a life lived to the fullest. Eros and death are recurring themes in creations filled with fauns, snakes, cupids, and nudes. Stuck's iconic painting “Die Sünde” (The Sin, 1893, Neue Pinakothek, Munich) shows a naked femme fatale entwined with snakes. It was the most notorious painting at the first exhibition of the Munich Secession. Shrouded in an eerie light, this mysterious, seductive figure stares directly at the viewer. Stuck, a founding member of the Munich Secession and a driving force behind the division of progressive artists from the conservative Munich Artists' Cooperative drew inspiration for “Die Sünde” from the story of Adam and Eve. At around the same time, he explored the motif of the Greek goddess Pallas Athena, adopting her war helmet as the famous emblem of the Munich Secession.
As the first of the three secessionist art movements, the Munich Secession was a model for the Vienna and Berlin Secessions, which were founded in the following years. Pallas Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, strategy, battle, and the arts, is also one of the protagonists in the ancient mythology of the Judgment of Paris. According to the legend, which Renaissance artists rediscovered, the young Paris was tasked with choosing the most beautiful of three goddesses: Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite. All three tried to win the young prince's favor, and Paris eventually chose Aphrodite, who promised him the love of the most beautiful woman in the world. One of the early Renaissance paintings dedicated to this ancient scene is Sandro Botticelli's painting of the same name (1485/88, Fondazione Cini, Venice). Even though Botticelli still shows the three goddesses fully clothed, the theme would enjoy great popularity from then on, mainly because, similar to the biblical Fall of Man, its historical narrative provides legitimacy for erotic depictions of the female body. While Stuck produced a second, somewhat later, and much more traditional depiction of this ancient subject, the eccentric master painter achieved something remarkable with the present composition of “The Judgment of Paris.” Stuck confronts observers with the three goddesses emerging from the infinite black background like dreamlike figures, while both painter and viewer assume the role of Paris. However, Stuck does not pass judgment, instead placing the three competing goddesses, bathed in a mysterious glowing light, side by side as equal aspects of femininity: Athena, the goddess of wisdom and battle; Hera, the goddess of marriage and family; and Aphrodite, the goddess of desire and erotic love. Stuck wove all this into a sensually complex representation of femininity in his mysterious creation “The Judgment of Paris,” which he selected for the International Art Exhibition in Venice four years before his untimely death. [JS]