Mark Stock – The Butler’s in Love, 1987, Intaglio with Etching and Aquatints, signed, numbered, edition of 50, 27 1/4 x 22 inches / 69,2 x 55,9 cm.Ask for price!
About this work
“The Star Above the Forest” is a tale by Stefan Zweig, Austria (1881 – 1942). The Butler François, who works in the Riviera Hotel, is enchanted by serving the Countess Ostrowska and feels a deep admiration for her person. With a faithful, desireless love he serves her unnoticed and absorbs every command to be near her. But when he realizes that the Countess is leaving by train, François’ life suddenly collapses. After initial thoughts, he takes his little money to buy a very special, last bouquet of flowers for his beloved. After this, thoughts of death drive him around, which finally lead him to the track on which the train of Countess Ostrowska will travel……….
Here is what happens when he jumps under the train:
“Suddenly she lowered her book with limp fingers. She herself did not know why. Some secret feeling was tearing at her. She felt a dull but painful pressure. A sudden sense of constriction that she couldn’t explain clutched her heart. She thought she would choke on the heavy, intoxicating aroma of the flowers. And that terrifying pain did not pass, she felt every revolution of the rushing wheels, their blind, pounding, forward movement was an unspeakable torment. Suddenly she longed to be able to halt the swift momentum of the train, to haul it back from the dark pain towards which it was racing. She had never in her life felt such fear of something terrible, invisible and cruel seizing on her heart as she did now, in those seconds of incomprehensible, incredible pain and fear. And that unspeakable feeling grew stronger and stronger, tightening its grasp around her throat. The idea of being able to stop the train was like a prayer moaned out loud in her mind”. (From “The Star Above the Forest” 1924, tale by Stefan Zweig).
About the artist
Mark Stock (*1951 in Frankfurt/Main; † 2014 in San Francisco). Works by Mark Stock: The New York Museum of Modern Art, The Brooklyn Museum, The National Gallery and Library of Congress, Washington, DC. In his paintings “The Butler’s in Love”, Stock tried to process his destroyed hopes by rejecting his great love, to which he felt socially inferior. For years he painted this motif, in which melancholy, resignation and dreaminess find their expression. Also almost all of Stefan Zweig’s works can be reduced to these characteristics as well as to those of tragedy and drama. The protagonists of his books are prevented by both external and internal circumstances from attaining their happiness, which seems immediately attainable, and subjected to a demonic compulsion that tears them out of the traditional order of their lives.
Mark Stock, The Butler’s in Love, 2001, color lithograph, edition of 50, signed, numbered, 28 x 20 5/8 inches / 71 x 52,4 cm.Ask for price!
Mark Stock, Gnaw, 2003, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inch.Ask for price!
