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| Adolph Menzel Living room with the artist's sister 1847 oil on paper, mounted on panel Neue Pinakothek, Munich |
"Somewhere and somewhen, in a region quite possibly furnished with all manner of agreeable sights and significant features, there lived a peculiar girl – being at once beautiful and clever – who was capable both of making merry and of handling her income or assets in a thrifty, economical manner. Her figure was graceful, her conduct pleasing, and she managed to impart to her features a suitable, endearing measure of restraint that prompted her to speak in a simultaneously animated and circumspect way. Important personages came to call, impelled by the desire to make her acquaintance, and were visibly enchanted, for she received and entertained them willingly and so in good friendship. Her garden appeared, with regard to its well-tendedness and multiplicity of forms, to be a match for – or indeed even capable of surpassing – any other garden. The food that originated in her kitchen and found its place on the table seemed to have been exquisitely prepared and was in every sense delectable. Isn't it true that I am describing here a virtually fantastic person?"
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| Adolph Menzel The artist's sitting-room on Ritterstraße 1851 oil on cardboard Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Adolph Menzel The artist's bedroom on Ritterstraße 1847 oil on paper Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin |
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| Adolph Menzel Studio wall 1872 oil on canvas Kunsthalle, Hamburg |
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| Adolph Menzel Emilie Menzel asleep ca. 1848 oil on paper, mounted on canvas Kunsthalle, Hamburg |
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| Adolph Menzel The artist's sister Emilie 1851 pastel National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Adolph Menzel The sleeping seamstress at the window (the artist's sister Emilie) 1843 etching Philadelphia Museum of Art |
"Yesterday I used a radio receiver for the first time. This was an agreeable way, I found, to be convinced that entertainment is available. You hear something that is far away, and the people producing these audible sounds are speaking, as it were, to everyone -- in other words they are completely ignorant as to the number and characteristics of their listeners. Among other things, I heard the sports results from Berlin. The person announcing them to me had not an inkling of my listenership or even of my existence. I also heard Swiss-German poems being read, which in part I found exceptionally amusing. When a group of people listens to the radio, they naturally stop carrying on conversations. While they are occupied with listening, the art of companionship is, as it were, neglected a little. This is a quite proper, obvious consequence. I and the people sitting beside me heard a cello being played in England."
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| Adolph Menzel Sketchbook 1863 drawing of infant facial features Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles |
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| Adolph Menzel Sketchbook 1863 drawing of woman and child reading Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles |
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| Adolph Menzel Standing young man in 18th-century costume ca. 1850-60 drawing, gouache Morgan Library, New York |
"Jaunts elegant in nature now lay in the past for this sorrowful man, who in the course of time might well have amassed quite respectable skills in crossing his arms and gazing pensively at the ground before him. His youth had been framed, as it were, by severe, naked, tall, blue, I mean to say joy-deficient, cliffs. He entered into turbulent, harsh circumstances that required he steel himself. Desires no doubt awoke in his breast, but he found it his duty to disregard them. He made the acquaintance of nights he was compelled to pass without sleeping. The deprivation following this man everywhere prompted the urge to distinguish himself to arise within him, and where entertainments were concerned, impressed on him the notion that life demanded he abjure them. Wishing to walk straight ahead, he would at once find some obstacle impeding him. As for friends, either he had none or they were avoiding him, for he appeared to possess few or no prospects for making something of himself. And so he befriended loneliness, which has been sought and desired by many whom loneliness did not consider worthy of notice."
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| Adolph Menzel Figure of a man unbinding his sash 1850s drawing Morgan Library, New York |
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| Adolph Menzel Richard Menzel posing in 18th-century costume 1854 drawing National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Adolph Menzel Artist’s model in back view putting on 18th-century uniform ca. 1850 drawing Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University |
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| Adolph Menzel Vest of Augustus the Strong 1840 drawing National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Adolph Menzel Waterproof coat of General Moltke 1871 drawing National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
"I am living here in a sort of hospital room and am using a newspaper to give support to the page on which I write this sketch."
– quoted extracts are from Microscripts by Robert Walser, originally composed in German during the 1920s, but unpublished until 1978 – translated by Susan Bernofsky and first published in English by New Directions in 2010. Diagnosed with schizophrenia (much disputed by later biographers and critics), Walser entered a Swiss sanitarium in 1929. He remained institutionalized until his death in 1956.
