DOI Heft:
No. 110 (May, 1902)
DOI Artikel:Singer, Hans Wolfgang: A German painter: Robert Sterl
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19875#0249
Robert Sterl
of saints when presented as vagabonds, or of
Danae's charms when disclosed in the form of a
charwoman. The allegorical triptych of the Belgian
Leon Frederic, now in the Brussels Gallery, repre-
sents, perhaps, the climax of the period.
When the time came, Sterl took to " poor folk,"
along with the rest, yet not so savagely, if I may
be allowed the expression, as most of the others.
The issue alone would prove this. Frederic, for
example, now no longer paints poverty. To Sterl it
has been more than a passing freak.
To paint or carve "poor folk " for a public that
has lost its naivete so completely as th e living age is
not an easy matter. To-day, Constantin Meunier
is one of the foremost, if not the foremost, in the
field. Yet when we look upon his magnificent
work can we quite repress the feeling that at
heart he does not only want to captivate us for
his work, but also for the folk whom he uses as
models ? Sterl would be the first to rebuke me it
I were to draw an unfavourable comparison, and
yet I cannot help thinking that he has avoided a
pit into which many have fallen. He has succeeded
in presenting the " poor folk " without either evok-
ing our compassion or our disgust, pressing them
into the service of artistic ideas solely.
He chose as his models the working people in
the sandstone quarries along the Elbe. Some
pictures show us groups being paid off, or return-
ing home in the evening, or repairing to the
tavern; others, single types of working men or
their womenfolk. What they are doing does
'AT WORK"
236
FROM A DRAWING BY ROBERT STERL
of saints when presented as vagabonds, or of
Danae's charms when disclosed in the form of a
charwoman. The allegorical triptych of the Belgian
Leon Frederic, now in the Brussels Gallery, repre-
sents, perhaps, the climax of the period.
When the time came, Sterl took to " poor folk,"
along with the rest, yet not so savagely, if I may
be allowed the expression, as most of the others.
The issue alone would prove this. Frederic, for
example, now no longer paints poverty. To Sterl it
has been more than a passing freak.
To paint or carve "poor folk " for a public that
has lost its naivete so completely as th e living age is
not an easy matter. To-day, Constantin Meunier
is one of the foremost, if not the foremost, in the
field. Yet when we look upon his magnificent
work can we quite repress the feeling that at
heart he does not only want to captivate us for
his work, but also for the folk whom he uses as
models ? Sterl would be the first to rebuke me it
I were to draw an unfavourable comparison, and
yet I cannot help thinking that he has avoided a
pit into which many have fallen. He has succeeded
in presenting the " poor folk " without either evok-
ing our compassion or our disgust, pressing them
into the service of artistic ideas solely.
He chose as his models the working people in
the sandstone quarries along the Elbe. Some
pictures show us groups being paid off, or return-
ing home in the evening, or repairing to the
tavern; others, single types of working men or
their womenfolk. What they are doing does
'AT WORK"
236
FROM A DRAWING BY ROBERT STERL