Helene Raff and Henrik Ibsen

Abstract

This biographical essay, starting from the recent publication of two books by Helene Raff, Joachim Raff: Portrait of a Life (1925) and Leaves from life’s Tree (1938), clarifies the very hidden affair between the young painter Helene Raff and the aged Henrik Ibsen, who regarded her as “youth personified”. The essay is an attempt to detect all the psychological implications of this relationship from an aesthetic viewpoint, hypothesizing that some traits of the character of the musician Joachim Raff, Helene’s father, may have passed into the figure of Solness, the master builder.