New objectivity
An outstanding example of this period is his Anatomy. For Boeckl, this was the "fundamental outcome of the nature paintings I had done up to that time", and at the same time a "conclusion, perhaps even the conclusion of my entire work as a young man". This very realistic, even down-to-earth painting shows the opened corpse of a young man. The intense, disharmonious colours of the yellow body and the bright red blood intensify the realistic effect. Besides various motifs from the dissecting-room, it is above all nature - wounded, mutilated, maltreated - that Herbert Boeckl draws under his spell: stone quarries, ore-mines, dilapidated houses, or still life - nature morte - nature no longer alive, in the form of dead animals.

Distinguishing between the accidental and the essential
His many drawings of dead bodies and dead nature taught him "to distinguish between the accidental and the essential". All his life, his painting was determined by one goal: to track down, comprehend and represent the essential, both in forms and in people and animals

Open thorax
1931, oil on canvas,
50 x 90 cm,
privately owned, Washington DC