Campus Units
World Languages and Cultures
Document Type
Book Review
Publication Version
Published Version
Publication Date
2019
Journal or Book Title
Goethe Yearbook
Volume
26
First Page
332
Last Page
333
DOI
10.1353/gyr.2019.0009
Abstract
Work has long served as the object of literary, philosophical, and artistic reflection. Its alternatives are also well represented, particularly in German Romanticism. Caspar David Friedrich’s Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer (1818) offers a celebrated example of the latter, and features prominently on the cover of Arbeit und Müßiggang in der Romantik. Above the fog and in view of the wanderer, we also see Barge Haulers on the Volga (1870–73) by the Russian realist Ilya Repin. Because explicit depictions of work are largely absent in German Romantic painting, this striking image of manual labor was selected to counter Friedrich’s iconic image (11–12). The workers, in tattered clothes and wearing blank expressions, contrast sharply with the well-dressed observer transposed to witness the men (and boy) yoked to a heavy vessel. Barge Haulers on the Volga clearly depicts work, but to what extent does Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer represent idleness, leisure, or perhaps another form of work? The twenty-eight essays in this volume demonstrate that the questions surrounding work and its other depend on circumstance and perspective.
Copyright Owner
North American Goethe Society
Copyright Date
2019
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Carter, William H., "Review of Arbeit und Müßiggang in der Romantik. Claudia Lillge, Thorsten Unger, and Björn Weyand, eds. Paderborn: Fink, 2017. 494 pp." (2019). World Languages and Cultures Publications. 226.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/language_pubs/226
Included in
Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Art and Architecture Commons, German Linguistics Commons, German Literature Commons, Painting Commons, Theory and Criticism Commons
Comments
This review is published as Carter, W., H. Claudia Lillge, Thorsten Unger, and Björn Weyand, eds. Arbeit und Müßiggang in der Romantik. Paderborn: Fink, 2017.; Goethe Yearbook; 26(2019); 332-333. Doi: 10.1353/gyr.2019.0009. Posted with permission.