Carl Spitzweg (February 5, 1808 – September 23, 1885) was a German romanticist painter and poet. He is considered to be one of the most important artists of the Biedermeier era.
Like so many of Car Spitzweg’s paintings, The Bookworm takes a humorous look at the world around him. The target this time is a scholar in a rather large library. High up on a ladder, in the Metatphysik (Metaphysics) section, our scholar is definitely not being portrayed in a favorable light. In his attempt to understand the world, he apparently escapes to a lonely corner of a library filled literally floor-to-ceiling with books. Natural light from an unseen window or skylight shines down on our scholar as he looks in what Spitzweg may be trying to tell us is the wrong place for the knowledge that the scholar seeks.
This painting by the famous German artist Carl Spitzweg (1808-1885) makes me smile every time I see it. It pokes fun of the curious practice of the 19th Century when many Europeans of means fancied themselves adventurers and scientists simply because they had the wherewithal and inclination to travel to exotic places. In The Butterfly Hunter, we have an intrepid naturalist encountering a pair of giant butterflies. The naturalist carries a bright red umbrella, a canteen and a variety of other supplies along with a dainty looking butterfly net. The sun reflects off of his spectacles, giving him an almost bug-eyed look at he gazes in astonishment at the huge blue butterflies which could never possibly fit into his little net.
He lays among his books in his tiny attic room. Oblivious to the world around him, his quill held in his mouth while he uses his fingers to count the meter, The Poor Poet plies his trade. Like so many of the German painter Carl Spitzweg’s paintings, this one combines a look into real life with a tinge of humor. The worn and misshapen umbrella hanging from the ceiling to ward off leaks is perhaps one of most iconic images of all of Spitzweg’s nearly 1,500 paintings.
A poll of Germans listed this painting as their second favourite painting of all time. Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was foremost in their hearts.
The Biedermeier period refers to an era in Central Europe during which the middle-class grew and arts appealed to common sensibilities in the historical period between 1815, the year of the Congress of Vienna at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and 1848, the year of the European revolutions. Although the term itself is a historical reference, it is predominantly used to denote the artistic styles that flourished in the fields of literature, music, the visual arts and interior design.
Biedermeier - artistic style, the direction of the German and Austrian art (architecture and design), common in the years 1815-1848.
The style got its name from the nickname "Gottlieb Biedermeier," which took the German poet Ludwig Eyhrodt, and under which the epigram published in journals. Bieder word translated as "simple-minded, narrow-minded." In general, a nickname meaning "simple-minded, Mr. Mayer."
However, the revolutionary poet Louis Peacock in 1847 a poem entitled Biedermeier Lord has written the smugness and hypocrisy denounced. It begins with the lines:
Look, there walked Mr. Biedermeier
and his wife, his son by the arm;
his step is as gently on eggs
his motto: neither cold nor hot.
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