Painter Klecksel

Painter Klecksel, click to leaf through

Painter Klecksel is the last picture story by the humorous poet and draftsman Wilhelm Busch . It appeared in June 1884, almost exactly a year after the publication of Balduin Bählamm, the poet who was unable to attend . Similar to Balduin Bählamm , Busch's theme in this picture story is artistic failure, which some Busch biographers see as a self-comment on his life. Wilhelm Busch was known as a cartoonist and rhymer; his attempts to establish himself as a serious painter and poet failed. His volume of poetry, Critique of the Heart , had not met with any response; his paintings did not meet his own standards, so that he never took part in an exhibition.

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Similar to Balduin Bählamm , the painter Klecksel, consisting of nine chapters and a “conclusion”, has a long preface (the first chapter) which, according to the Busch biographer Joseph Kraus, is a brilliant piece of comic poetry .

[...]

I am therefore instead of whining

More for the silent world of the brush;

And whatever one may say

The afternoon is enjoyable

Me in the midst of beautiful things

Spend in the dear art association;

Most of the time with women, of course.

Here is the realm of golden frames

Beauty and taste rule here,

Here it smells pleasantly of paint:

Here the wall shows no nakedness,

Because magnificent paintings of any size

Dress her up and wait quietly

Until they are honored, and I do.

Painter Klecksel criticizes above all the bourgeois art connoisseur, whose key to art is above all the price of the work.

With a keen eye for connoisseurs

First I look at the price

And on closer inspection

If the price increases, so does the respect.

I look through the cupped hand

I blink, nod: 'Ah, charming!'

The coloring, the brushwork,

The hues, the grouping,

This chandelier, this harmony,

A masterpiece of the imagination.

The preface ends with the hint that painting can also be used to make money. The young Kuno Klecksel is also not described from an artistic point of view, but rather on the basis of his artistry. Nobody can sharpen a pencil like him, few only wipe with a rubber like him. In this picture story Busch ironically ironizes his experiences at the art academies in Düsseldorf, Antwerp and Munich.

After much effort, Klecksel finds a rich patroness, Miss von der Ach, after he has saved her from a precarious situation, but in the end he loses her favor again after she catches him with his real lover. Unlike in other Busch stories, Klecksel does not come to a tragic end; Rather, he changes his occupation and becomes a tavern in his old local pub, much like the poet Balduin Bählamm, who returns to his bourgeois profession after his poetic endeavors have failed.

expenditure

• Wilhelm Busch: painter Klecksel. In: Rolf Hochhuth (Ed.): Wilhelm Busch, Complete Works and a selection of the sketches and paintings in two volumes. Volume 2: What is popular is also allowed. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1959, pp. 616–673.

supporting documents

literature

• Michaela Diers: Wilhelm Busch, life and work. dtv 2008, ISBN 978-3-423-34452-4
• Joseph Kraus: Wilhelm Busch. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1970 (16th edition 9/2004), ISBN 3-499-50163-5
• Gudrun Schury: I wish I were an Eskimo. The life of Wilhelm Busch. Biography . Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-351-02653-0
• Gert Ueding : Wilhelm Busch. The 19th century in miniature. Insel, Frankfurt / M. 1977 (new edition 2007).
• Eva Weissweiler: Wilhelm Busch. The laughing pessimist. A biography . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-462-03930-6

Single receipts

1. ↑ see for example Diers, p. 147
2. ↑ Kraus, p. 101

Web links

Wilhelm Busch: painter Klecksel on zeno.org