Politics in at Oyster House
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| Politics in at Oyster House |
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| Richard Caton Woodville , 1848 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 40.6 × 33 cm |
| Walters Art Museum |
Politics in an Oyster House , German politics in an oyster house , is the title of a genre painting and main work by the American painter Richard Caton Woodville . The painting shows two men in the interior of a simple oyster tavern on the east coast of the United States talking about politics . It was created in Düsseldorf in 1848 and uses a narrative and realistic style of the Düsseldorf School of Painting to present people of different characters and ages as well as different opinions in their culture of debate in a political discourse .
Description and meaning
The picture shows a scene in a eatery, as it was typical for Baltimore , the home of the painter, in the middle of the 19th century. Two gentlemen sit on simple wooden benches at a table with a stone top in a booth . Its red curtain is drawn up and creates the effect of a small stage. The floor made of simple wooden planks is dirty. There is a spittoon there , the painter's trademark on many of his pictures. There is also a fallen napkin and a worn cigar stub. In doing so, the painter increases the realism of his motif. On the plain wall, to which a menu is pinned, the arm of what was then a modern gas light protrudes over the table. On the table there are some bottles for food ingredients as well as a white jug with a liqueur glass, which shows that the meal has ended and the digestive schnapps is now consumed.
According to the title of the picture, the gentlemen are having a conversation about politics. Presumably the newspaper that the all-black-clad, bearded younger man with a dented cylinder on his head is holding in the fist of his left hand is the topic of conversation. The elderly gentleman, elegantly dressed with a white collar and tie - gray-haired and bald - has hung his top hat on the wall behind him and placed his umbrella on the corner post of the booth to the right of him. He holds his left, open hand to his ear, while his right, which encloses the temple of a pair of glasses in his bent hand, lies on his thigh. His face, especially his nose, turned red from enjoying the schnapps.
The younger one speaks intensely to the older one and fixates him in the process. To reinforce his political position, he lists his arguments on the fingers of his right hand. Meanwhile, the older one looks at the viewer with a skeptical , slightly amused expression. It remains to be seen whether the older one does not fully understand the younger one acoustically - this could be signaled by their open hand on their ear - or whether they cannot follow the content of their counterpart. In any case, the differences represented by facial expressions and gestures appear as an expression of a contrast in temperaments . Against the background of the age difference of the actors, they can also be interpreted as an expression of a social generation conflict. This interpretation is also obvious because Woodville dealt with the different ways of seeing and reacting between generations in the paintings War News from Mexico and Old '76 and Young '48, which were created around the same time .
By letting the elderly communicate non-verbally with the viewer, the painter shows the younger, who does not take off his dented cylinder even inside a booth, in the gesture of excited politicization and propaganda and thus makes a little ridiculous, he creates an ironic one Tension that shows a certain sympathy of the painter for the skeptical point of view of the elder.
Since the painter made a second version of the picture with the title A New York Communist Advancing an Argument , German A New York Communist arguing , and presented it in 1852, it is better known which political content is involved in the discussion. Accordingly, the younger man with a top hat is a supporter of communism , who actively promotes his political views and social theory, while the older man appears as a skeptical representative of the bourgeoisie or the bourgeoisie . In this context, the red curtain indicates the motif of the red flag as a symbol of the revolution . The newspaper symbolizes the press and the public opinion influenced by this mass medium as a new, important social factor in politics in the 19th century.
In the context of domestic political conditions in the United States during the tenure of President James K. Polk , the subject of discussion in the scene can be related to the social and political lines of conflict between Democrats and Whigs over the role and power of the central government, referred to in US political history under the term Jacksonian Democracy will be dealt with. The Mexican-American War as a political implementation of the expansionist doctrine of the Manifest Destiny was a controversial topic of the time, to which the discussion of the discussants can be related.
Creation, reception, provenance
Richard Caton Woodville painted the picture until about the beginning of 1848 in Düsseldorf, where he lived with his wife from 1845 after having broken off his medical studies and was trained as an academic painter in private lessons with Karl Ferdinand Sohn until 1851 . His greatest role model within the Düsseldorf School of Painting was Johann Peter Hasenclever , who - deviating from the official line of the Düsseldorf Art Academy - cultivated genre painting and in this genre a humorous and socially critical realism. He adopted various stylistic devices from Hasenclever, including those for irony and the psychological depiction of strange characters. The motif of the newspaper reader found its way into his work through Hasenclever and Wilhelm Kleinenbroich . At the same time as this picture he used the newspaper reader motif in the painting War News from Mexico , later again in the picture Waiting for the Stage .
Woodville had received the commission for the picture Politics in at Oyster House from the lawyer John HB Latrobe (1803-1891). Latrobe, son of the renowned US architect Benjamin Latrobe , traveled to Europe on a grand tour in 1847 , including the Rhine. During this trip, the order for this picture was probably placed through a personal contact between the two of them in Düsseldorf.
As the seat of parliament of the Rhine Province, Düsseldorf was at that time a political center in the Kingdom of Prussia . In the pre-March period , the city was considered a focal point of political discussion and democratic movement in Germany . The so-called Cologne-Düsseldorf Fraternization Festival had already shown that the predominantly liberal-minded Rhenish bourgeoisie had developed critical political views and their own political identity with self-confident demands on the Prussian headquarters in Berlin. As a left wing of the political spectrum, against the background of the impoverishment of large sections of the population in the larger, early industrial cities on the Rhine, a labor movement also formed , whose ideological program Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels formulated in the Communist Party's manifesto around the turn of the year 1847/1848 . The February Revolution in France in 1848 was followed by the March Revolution in Germany. In this context, one was constituted in Dusseldorf vigilantes who led by Lorenz Cantador raised the demand for civil rights and constitutional power limit of the Prussian crown and large German national association. The painters of the Düsseldorf Academy were strongly represented in their ranks.
Like Hasenclever, who artistically condensed the revolutionary mood of Düsseldorf in the painting Workers in Front of the Magistrate , Woodville also found the material for his picture in the politicized climate of the city. However, he moved the scene to an ordinary eatery for oysters, a place that the residents of the East Coast of America called "Oyster House" or "Oyster Cellar" had a reputation for being visited only by men, especially by men who like to lead heated political discussions. Mostly located near the port areas, these bars were considered a quick and cheap opportunity to have a meal. It was also visited by men from all walks of life to meet and do business. For honorable ladies, on the other hand, it was not appropriate to stop there.
The painting was first shipped to New York City , where it was briefly shown at an American Art Union exhibition . In Baltimore, it was delivered on May 29, 1848 at Latrombes residence. Attached was a note from William Woodville V, Woodville's father, in which he said the following for his son: “Caton asks me to inform you that if you are not satisfied, you will send the picture back to me without hesitation. He'd be very happy to paint another one for you. ”Apparently, however, his client liked the picture very much because he made it available to the Maryland Historical Society for their first annual exhibition, and then hung it until his widow's death in 1905 Reception salon of his house. The art-loving engineer C. Morgan Marshall, a confidante of Henry Walters ', who bequeathed it to the Walters Art Museum in 1945, is also vouched for as the owner of the painting .
The Italian painter and engraver Michele Fanoli (1803–1876) made lithographs of the picture for the New York branch of the Parisian art trading house Groupil & Co. in 1850/1851. The Literary Wold magazine in New York City promoted it as an "extremely fine representation of American politicians".
Woodville made several copies of the original. He painted a second version of the painting during a stay in London under the title A New York Communist Advancing an Argument and presented it in 1852 with some success at an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts . A reprint of the painting was then published in The Illustrated London News, with a review judging the picture "a clever little piece ... of more than ordinary merit".
literature
- Sabine Schroyen: Politics in an oyster house, 1848 . In: Bettina Baumgärtel : The Düsseldorf School of Painting and its international impact 1819–1918 . Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86568-702-9 , Volume 2, p. 298 (Cat. No. 249).
- H. Barbara Weinberg, Carrie Rebora Barratt (Eds.): American Stories. Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915 . New Haven and London 2009, ISBN 978-0-3001-9952-9 , p. 48 f.
Web links
- Politics in an Oyster House , picture explanation in the portal art.thewalters.org ( Walters Art Museum )
- Politics In at Oyster House. Les Politiques au Cabaret. Website for the lithograph of the same name (1851) on the americanantiquarian.org portal
Individual evidence
- ^ Wend von Kalnein : The influence of Düsseldorf on painting outside Germany . In: Wend von Kalnein: The Düsseldorf School of Painting . Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Düsseldorf 1979, ISBN 3-8053-0409-9 , p. 204
- ^ Judith A. Barter: Food for Thought: American Art and Eating . In: Annelise K. Madsen, Sarah Kelly Oehler, Nancy Siegel, Ellen E. Roberts: Art and Appetite. American Painting, Culture, and Cuisine . Yale University Press, 2013, p. 23 ( Google Books )
- ↑ "Caton desires me to say to you, that if you do not like it, you must not hesitate about returning it to me, and he will, with the greatest pleasure, paint another for you."
- ^ "A most exquisite representation of American politicians." - The Literary World (New York City), December 21, 1850 edition
- ^ "A spirited little piece ... of more than ordinary merit".