Franz von Stuck was a German Symbolist and Expressionist painter. He began to make a name for himself with illustrations for the Fliegende Blätter and the creation of vignettes for book decoration. He only devoted himself to painting from 1889, when he achieved success with his first painting The Warder of Paradise. His painting style is based on a great mastery of composition and would be more sculptural than pictorial. His favorite subjects are mythological and allegorical in nature. But his treatment of classical subjects is generally unconventional. The statuette of an athlete, of which bronze copies are found in Berlin, Budapest and Hamburg, shows his plastic talent. Among his most famous paintings are Sin and War, at the Pinakothek in Munich, The Sphinx, The Crucifixion, The Rivals, Paradise Lost, Oedipus, Temptation, and Lucifer.