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| Adolph Menzel Study of a Prussian officer, half-length, from the rear 1860 drawing Morgan Library, New York |
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| Adolph Menzel Studies of a dancer ca. 1870-80 drawing British Museum |
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| Adolph Menzel Studies of a young woman 1870s drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Adolph Menzel Sleeping youth, his head and arm resting on the back of a sofa before ca. 1875-90 drawing Morgan Library, New York |
Adolph Menzel (or Adolph von Menzel, as he became when ennobled by the Kaiser for the sake of his art in 1898, toward the end of a long life) was indisputably the most widely-esteemed German artist of the 19th century. "More than 10,000 of his drawings survive. The trailblazer of German Realist painting, Menzel aimed to create images that were more true-to-life and precise than photographs. His height – four feet, seven inches – destined him to be an outsider. One of Edgar Degas's friends remembered Menzel at a ball: a small man with glasses, speaking little, drinking champagne, and sketching." In posthumous fame, Menzel's only rival among his German peers has proved to be Caspar David Friedrich, an artist who came strongly into fashion worldwide during the second half of the 20th century. But during their own newly-modern century itself – when both artists were alive – Menzel was a household name, while Friedrich remained all but unknown.
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| Adolph Menzel Woman in court dress ca. 1875-90 drawing National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Adolph Menzel Study of a woman ca. 1875-90 drawing National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Adolph Menzel Study of a man in a hat, from behind 1880 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Adolph Menzel Head of a bearded man 1884 drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Adolph Menzel Heads of two old men and a right hand holding a hat 1887 drawing Princeton University Art, Museum |
THE TRAIN STATION (II)
One of the cleverest and most technological advances brought forth by the modern age is, in my opinion, the train station. Daily, hourly, trains rush either into or out of it, bearing persons of all ages and characters and of every profession off into the distance or else whisking them back home. What a life pageant is offered by this entity I am reporting on here with pleasure, though also without describing it too exhaustively, as I am not an expert. I hope I am justified in observing it instead from a more general, accessible angle. The very picture the station presents, with all its coming and going, can be described as highly agreeable, and to this must be added all the particularly refreshing and delightful sounds – the shouts, people talking, the rolling of wheels, and the reverberations of hurrying footsteps. Here a little lady is selling newspapers, and over there packages and small valises are being checked at the baggage counter for such and such a length of time. Amid the graceful clinking of useful money, train tickets are being requested and dispensed. A person about to set off on a journey quickly partakes of a sausage or plate of soup in the restaurant to fortify himself. In the spacious waiting rooms, male and female possessors of wanderlust cool their heels, some with a pleasure-filled jaunt before them, others pursuing serious business objectives and mercantile or commercial plans aimed at preserving their subsistence. Books are on display and for sale at a kiosk, including merely entertaining or suspenseful volumes and high-quality reading material. You need only reach out your hand for culture and pay the specified price. Elsewhere you encounter fruits such as apples, pears, cherries and bananas. Posters inform you of the interesting sights to be seen all over the world, for example an ancient city, quays bearing palace hotels, a mountain peak, an imposing cathedral, or a palm-studded landscape with pyramids. All manner of things both known and unknown are parading by. I myself am sometimes well-known, sometimes a stranger. Often entire associations go marching respect-inducingly into the main hall, a space that exemplifies the Machine Age and embodies something international. It's almost romantic to think that in all these countries, be it in the sunlit daytime or at night, trains are indefatigably crossing back and forth. What a far-reaching network of civilization and culture this implies. Organizations that have been created and institutions that have been called into existence cannot simply be shrugged off. Everything I achieve and accomplish brings with it obligations. My activity is superior to me.
It's lovely when a parting takes place at a train station or else a reunion transpires and occurs.
– by Robert Walser, from the collection called Microscripts, 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. I quote this passage in particular for the way Walser gradually 'runs off the rails' as the paragraph ends (and the form itself becomes a special sort of self-canceling metaphor).
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| Adolph Menzel Studies of a man drinking from a cup 1888 drawing National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Adolph Menzel Study of a woman in profile 1890 drawing Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut |
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| Adolph Menzel Woman in a crushed velvet hat 1894 drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Adolph Menzel Three studies of women 1899 drawing Morgan Library, New York |
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| Adolph Menzel Portrait of a woman drawing 1902 British Museum |
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| Adolph Menzel Two studies of gripping right hands 1884 drawing Los Angeles County Museum of Art |