ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the treatment of Prometheus by German-speaking artists at the end of the nineteenth century, and the nature of their defining vitalism. Germanic Symbolist artists from the 1870s until the end of the century often expressed their idealism in the form of a green, luxurious landscape, in which men — often naked — enjoyed simple pleasures. Prometheus was a subject dear to the hearts of Germanic painters inasmuch as he symbolized the condition of existence, and the origin of Arcadia. Prometheus's rebellion represented the awakening of mankind, and the discovery of their own power, which led Prometheus himself to become the symbol of the rebirth of man, as well as the model of this new generation of active men. Through symbolic use of the etching technique, and the emphasis of the power of music in the person of Hercules, Klinger's Brahms Fantasy and Jettmar's Die Befreiung des Prometheus present similarities in their approach to Symbolism.
