III. The Transience of Being
During the second half of the 19th century, numerous representatives of Realism likewise confronted the transience of being. Death was frequently portrayed as being part of everyday life, for example in Albert Anker’s Die kleine Freundin (The Little Friend) or Max Buri’s Nach dem Begräbnis (After the Funeral).
The religious genre continued to be popular, as demonstrated by Ferdinand Hodler’s depiction of believers immersed in prayer in his painting Gebet im Kanton Bern (Prayer in the Canton of Bern). In this early work, the artist employed lifelike depictions in a portrait-like manner to anchor the figures in the here and now. The portraitist Karl Stauffer-Bern treated the Gekreuzigter (Crucified Christ) in the same way, transforming Christ from a saviour into a lifelike contemporary figure.
Annie Stebler-Hopf’s painting Am Seziertisch (Professor Poirier, Paris) (At the Dissecting Table [Professor Poirier, Paris]) represents a novel motif. In depicting the subject matter in a very sobering scene, it expresses a then current interest in the anatomy of the human body as well as contemporary achievements in medicine and its methods.