Knitting hermit

Details

Roennefahrt 1199; Wichmann 810.

Literatur:
Günther Roennefahrt, Carl Spitzweg. Beschreibendes Verzeichnis seiner Gemälde, Ölstudien und Aquarelle, München 1960, S. 269, Kat.-Nr. 1199, mit Abb.;
Siegfried Wichmann, Carl Spitzweg und die französischen Zeichner, Ausst.-Kat., Haus der Kunst, München 1985, S. 504, Kat.-Nr. 762, mit farb. Abb. S. 401;
Siegfried Wichmann, Carl Spitzweg. Verzeichnis der Werke, Stuttgart 2002, S. 310, Kat.-Nr. 642, mit farb. Abb.

Ausstellung:
Münchner Malerei unter Ludwig I., Galerie Heinemann, München 1921, S. 53, Kat.-Nr. 408, mit dem Titel “Beim Einsiedler”.

Provenienz:
Gebhardt, München, 4.2.1955;
Privatbesitz, Winterthur, laut Roennefahrt, verso beschriftet “Eigentum von … ” (verblasst);
Sammlung Georg Schäfer, Schweinfurt (Inv.-Nr. 2913), auf der Rahmenrückseite mit dem Etikett;
Privatsammlung, Süddeutschland.

Description

Following the secularisation of ecclesiastical property in the Electorate of Bavaria in 1802/03, hundreds of monasteries were expropriated by strangulating measures and the Jesuit order was even dissolved. However, cultural and intellectual life did not come to a complete standstill, but could be preserved by retreating into the private sphere. At the same time, countless monks who had become homeless retreated into the solitude of the forest. Most of them led a life of renunciation there, which served as inspiration for artists and writers alike: While Moritz von Schwind and Ludwig Richter approached the subject in late Romantic transfiguration, Spitzweg depicts the hermits, cloistered monks and monks in numerous variations, showing how they always retained an ounce of joie de vivre in their self-imposed, simple seclusion. In this narrow horizontal format, which can be assigned to Spitzweg’s late work, we encounter a monk living in seclusion, sitting in front of his sparse dwelling and fiddling with a knitting stocking while the afternoon sun dries his laundry. His only companion is a wandering raven. Such hermitages were extremely popular with the urban public, as they made him realise what had been lost unnoticed in his hectic everyday life – the will to leisure, even to contemplation, which the frugally working monk embodies.