Corinth underwent a lengthy period of academic artistic training that began in 1876, when he enrolled at the Academy of Königsberg. He studied in Munich from 1880 to 1884, where he was schooled in a Realist approach that emphasized close observation of the human figure. During a three-month stay in Antwerp in 1884, he was influenced by the vitality in the painting of Peter Paul Rubens. Later that year, Corinth moved to Paris and became a student at the Académie Julian, where he honed his draftsmanship under the tutelage of William Adolphe Bouguereau. Corinth was in Paris when the influential Impressionist artists worked and exhibited there, but he claimed to have been entirely unaware of their work. Disappointed by his lack of acceptance within the Parisian art world, Corinth returned to Germany in 1887. Soon after, he became involved in the Secession movement, an artists’ association formed by the painter Max Liebermann as a protest against the academic schools in Berlin and Munich. After settling in Berlin in 1901, Corinth’s mature work frequently involved dramatic treatments of religious, mythological, and historical subjects, rendered with loose brush work and strong colours that have often been described as Expressionist. Despite such seeming similarities, Corinth opposed the rise of Expressionism by excluding its artists from Secession exhibitions. He later grew to accept Expressionism’s merits, however, and embraced its intensely emotional approach in his own work. In 1911 Corinth suffered a stroke which left him partially paralyzed. Subsequently, his brushwork became more vigorous, and the work done after 1911 is often considered his best.

Though best known for his landscapes of the Walchensee area of Bavaria and for his portraits, Corinth also painted religious scenes, often violent ones such as the Golgotha altarpiece (1909–11). He also made etchings and lithographs, such as Apocalypse (1921), that, more so than his paintings, reveal his capacity for Expressionist power.