The poor poet

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The poor poet (Carl Spitzweg)
The poor poet
Carl Spitzweg , 1839
oil
36 × 45 cm
New Pinakothek gallery

The poor poet is the best known and most popular painting by the German painter Carl Spitzweg .

description

The picture shows a writer in his poor attic. The narrow room is illuminated by a small window on the left. On the right are the rafters of the house roof from which an umbrella hangs to protect the sleeping area from the moisture dripping through the roof. The room door can be seen on the right edge of the picture. Opposite the door, on the left edge of the picture, there is a green tiled stove without a fire in it. The writer depicted does not have a bed. Instead, there is a mattress on the floor against the wall, on which the poor poet lies in a dressing gown, with a sleeping cap on his head. On his knees he is holding some manuscript pages in his left hand. With his right hand he holds something between his thumb and middle finger and fixes it through his glasses. In front of the mattress are thick books and two boxes with an inkwell on them. On the back of the upright book on the far right are the Latin words: “ Gradus ad Parnassum ” (German: “Steps to Parnass ”), which is either the title of the main theoretical work by the Austrian composer Johann Joseph Fux published in 1725 or - in context closer to this picture - the instructions for writing Latin verses published by the Jesuit Paul Aler in Cologne in 1702. The poet probably painted the meter of the hexameter on the wall in red . There is a candle in a bottle on the green tiled stove, next to it the wash bowl, and a towel hangs on a clothesline above it. A top hat hangs from the unheated stovepipe. In the oven hole are sheets of paper that probably belong to the papers that lie in front of the oven and which are also inscribed in Latin with "Operum meorum fasciculum III" (German: "The third bundle of my works"). There is also a single boot and a boot jack in front of the stove . To the left of the stove is a must pot, on the wall next to it hangs the dressing gown and on the far left of the picture the walking stick is leaning against the wall. There are snow-covered roofs behind the window. An indication that it is cold. The poet, however, is so poor that he remains in bed to keep himself at least a little warm. He can only heat up if he stokes his works.

comment

For a long time it was puzzled as to what the poet would do with the fingers of his right hand. One obvious guess is that he is chanting a verse. According to another interpretation, he crushes a flea between his fingers - with which Spitzweg would ironically represent the discrepancy between the claim of the poet and reality.

The subject of "artists in a poor room" was dealt with before Spitzweg. The British painter William Hogarth was the first to deal with this subject in 1736. William Turner took up the subject in 1809. The Italian artist Tommaso Minardi painted a self-portrait in this manner. With Poète dans la mansarde (1842) and Locataires et Proprietaires: Brigand de proprietaire (1847), Honoré Daumier , obviously influenced by Spitzweg, took up the theme in two variants. There were poor poets on the stage too. From August von Kotzebue's play The Poor Poet from 1812 Spitzweg had probably borrowed the title.

Story / versions

  • First version (privately owned)

  • Third version (stolen)

The poor poet is Spitzweg's earliest masterpiece. According to current research, he served as a model for the poet Mathias Etenhueber, who lived in Munich from 1722 to 1782 and was mostly in financial distress . There are three finished versions (all 1839): The presumed first version is in private ownership and used to hang on loan at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, the most famous version today is in the Neue Pinakothek. The picture was given in 1887 as a gift from his nephew Spitzweg. Another version was in the Nationalgalerie Berlin : This picture was the subject of a political art campaign by Frank Uwe Laysiepen (also known as Ulay ) in 1976 : He stole the picture, but returned it after a few hours. On September 3, 1989, art thieves tore it from the wall together with Spitzweg's work The Love Letter and forcibly took it out of Charlottenburg Palace . Both images have not reappeared to this day.

In 1839, Spitzweg released it for exhibition at the Munich Art Association . It received sharp criticism and a. the "intended joke" was described as "vacuous and bland". The picture was perceived as strange and it was rejected as a mockery of poetry.

The earliest oil sketch (1837) was in January 2012 at Sotheby's in New York for 542,500 dollars at auction. and is now in the Grohmann Museum in Milwaukee .

reception

The first reviews for the poor poet were so bad that Spitzweg no longer signed his pictures with his name, but only with his monogram , a stylized Spitzweck (a diamond-shaped bun).

A survey at the beginning of the 21st century showed that The Poor Poet - right after Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa - is one of the most popular pictures among Germans. The German Post dedicated a special postage stamp to the painting in 2008.

  • Spitzweg's monogram

  • Special postage stamp "200. Birthday Carl Spitzweg "

literature

  • Wibke von Bonin: Hundreds of masterpieces from the world's great museums. Volume 3. VGS, 1987, ISBN 3-8025-2170-6 .
  • Rose-Marie Hagen and Rainer Hagen: Masterpieces in Detail: From the Bayeux Tapestry to Diego Rivera. Volume II. Taschen, Cologne 2006, ISBN 3-8228-4787-9 .
  • Lisa Schirmer: Carl Spitzweg. Seemann, Leipzig 1998, ISBN 3-363-00515-6 .
  • Kristiane Müller and Eberhard Urban : Carl Spitzweg - Popular and unknown pictures along with drawings and studies supplemented by poems and letters, testimonials and documents. Unipart, 1995, ISBN 3-8122-3410-6 .
  • Jens Christian Jensen: Carl Spitzweg. Prestel, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-7913-3747-0 .
  • Siegfried Wichmann : The poor poet - a flea catcher. Karl. M. Lipp, Munich 1982.

References and footnotes

  1. ↑ Mint fresh: Master of Biedermeier - 200th birthday of Carl Spitzweg. Edition 4/2007, p. 4 f., Federal Ministry of Finance, Berlin
  2. ↑ Manuel Albrecht : Carl Spitzweg's painter's paradise . Schuler-Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Herrsching am Ammersee , 1979, ISBN 3-7796-2046-4 , page 161
  3. ↑ Stefan Koldehoff: The Germans ' Favorite Picture , January 12, 2012 DIE ZEIT No. 3/2012 ( article on time online ) accessed on January 23, 2016
  4. ↑ Carl Spitzweg (1808-1885) Neue Pinakothek, Kabinett 11a ( Memento of the original from September 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. accessed on January 23, 2016  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.pinakothek.de
  5. ↑ Media Art Net: Media Art Net - Ulay (Laysiepen, Uwe): There is a criminal contact in art . June 9, 2017.
  6. ↑ The painting The Love Letter on Commons
  7. ↑ Schirmer, Lisa: Carl Spitzweg, Seemann Kunstverlag, Augsburg, 1995, p. 13
  8. ↑ Lot 84: Carl Spitzweg "DER ARME POET" (THE POOR POET) on sothebys.com. Retrieved January 23, 2016
  9. ↑ Google Art Project , accessed April 13, 2018
  10. ↑ Rose-Marie Hagen, Rainer Hagen: Masterpieces in detail

Web links

Commons : The Poor Poet  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files