작품 상세

Signed and dated 'G. Schrimpf 23' in brown lower right. - A painted and partly overpasted variant "Der Kuhhirte" (cf. Hofmann/Präger 1923/8) on verso. Schrimpf's 1923 painting “Im Hof/Geschwister” was preceded by a mother-and-child version from 1919, which is similar to it in many ways (see comparative illus.). The present version, whose title refers to “siblings”, also establishes the Christological association of “Madonna and Child”; however, in keeping with the verism of the New Objectivity, it is set within a working-class milieu, not in the “hortus conclusus”, but in a rear courtyard between rubbish bins and laundry hung out to dry. The child, who is turned away from the viewer, raises a hand as though in a gesture of benediction. This is not directly related to salvation; instead, it points to the hopeful, springtime budding of the crown of the tree beyond the wooden fence, thus generating a cheerful counterweight to the elements of social criticism in the scene. From 1918 to 1923 - perhaps as a result of his personal situation - Schrimpf increasingly occupied himself with the theme of mother and child. In 1924 Franz Roh presented a sketch of Schrimpf's painting in a book project: “In his pictures, an idealism of benevolence meets a realism of conscientious experience. […] he never painted from the model, even when his depictions feature a microscopic precision. Everything has to emerge from memory, the inner idea of form. […] Ultimately, the task of humanity is, after all, actually about building up an ever larger and purer circle around the idea and, on the other hand, more and more sharply and knowledgeably inserting the individual reality within it. Schrimpf's pictures generate a deep peace between both worlds, without seeking to eliminate a delicate tension which should always continue to exist between these spheres.” (Franz Roh, Georg Schrimpf. Seine kunstgeschichtliche Stellung, cited in: Wolfgang Storch, Georg Schrimpf und Maria Uhden. Leben und Werk, Berlin 1985, pp. 142 f.). RefMod191119