Lucifer

Franz von Stuck painted this in Munich in 1890, when he was in his late twenties and about to help found the Munich Secession, the breakaway that pulled younger German artists out from under the old academy. His Lucifer is not a beast. He sits hunched in the dark, a muscular figure whose only bright feature is a pair of green eyes that fix on you and will not let go. Two faint blue rays fall at the left. Within a year the painting left Germany for good. Ferdinand, the new ruler of Bulgaria, bought it straight from Stuck's studio for his royal collection in Sofia in 1891, which is why the fallen angel has hung in Bulgaria ever since.