Background
Schwabe was born in Altona, Holstein, and moved to Geneva, Switzerland at an early age, where he received the Swiss nationality.
Schwabe was born in Altona, Holstein, and moved to Geneva, Switzerland at an early age, where he received the Swiss nationality.
After studying art in Geneva, he relocated to Paris as a young man, where he worked as a wallpaper designer, and he became acquainted with Symbolist artists. His paintings typically featured mythological and allegorical themes. As an essentially literary artist, he was much in demand as a book illustrator.
He illustrated the novel Le rêve (1892) by Émile Zola, Charles Baudelaire"s Les Fleurs du mal (1900), Maurice Maeterlinck"s Pelléas et Mélisande (1892), and Albert Samain"s Jardin de l"infante (1908).
Schwabe lived in France for the rest of his life and died in Avon, Seine-et-Marne in 1926. Two distinct styles are recognized in his art
Images of women were important, sometimes representing death and suffering, other times creativity and guidance. The death of a close friend in 1894, when Schwabe was 28 years old, engendered his interest in representing death.
Before 1900, Schwabe"s paintings were more individual and experimental, indicating the idealism of the Symbolists. Conventional, allegorical scenes from nature became more prominent in his later work.