The painting by Markus Lüpertz “Style: Eurydice” belongs to a series of five works housed in various Ludwig museums. In the center of the composition, there are two large abstract objects, and in the right corner, one can discern a “smoking incense burner” associated with the theme of death and burial.

The artist placed large semi-abstract, semi-figurative forms on the canvas as if on the stage of a classical ancient Greek theater, decorated with a goat’s skull — another symbol of death. The source of inspiration was the ancient story of Eurydice, a prisoner of the kingdom of shadows. In this work, the artist interprets the departure from life as a kind of mystical ritual.

Markus Lüpertz was inspired by ancient culture and called his painting “dithyrambic”. A dithyramb is a choral hymn of ancient Greece dedicated to the god Dionysus. Lüpertz composes a symbolic, solemn, and alarming song about human destiny, triumph and defeat. In addition, his dithyramb is an ode, a praise to the art of painting.

Markus Lüpertz was born in 1941 in the Reichsgau Sudetenland — an administrative division of Nazi Germany. In 1948, his family emigrated to the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1956–1961, the artist lived and studied in a monastery, then worked as a miner for a year, studied at the School of Applied Arts in Krefeld, and then at the Academy of Arts in Düsseldorf. In 1962, Lüpertz moved to West Berlin.

In 1963, he began to work on “Dithyrambic Painting” and in 1964 opened a gallery in Berlin with an exhibition of the same name. Lüpertz became famous after the series of paintings “Dithyramb” and “Germanic Motifs”. From 1988 to 2009, he was professor and rector of the State Academy of Arts in Düsseldorf. Today the artist lives and works in Düsseldorf and Berlin.

Markus Lüpertz prefers simple subject plots, painted in an expressionist manner; therefore, he is considered one of the leaders of Neo-expressionism and the “Junge Wilde” (German for “young wild ones”) movement in Germany. He is interested not only in painting but also in sculpture, theater, poetry, and music.