Auf der Bastei

The times could not be more peaceful. Spitzweg shows us a yawning sentry on a fortification overgrown with ivy. A cannon protrudes from an embrasure, but has long been transformed into a bird’s nest – grass stems hang from its opening and a bird observes the soldier more vigilantly than he surveys the countryside. With the irony typical for Spitzweg, the drowsiness of the sentry points to the absence of any danger.

White flags have been transformed into white washing, war and conflict, such as the March Revolution of 1848/49, appear to be long forgotten. Between 1838 and the 1860s Spitzweg painted a series of such pictures in which he depicted soldiers knitting, yawning, or even sleeping. For a long time he was dismissed as a mere painter of idylls. However, his portrayals, often taken to the point of caricature, bear witness to the Munich painter’s keen eye for the petty bourgeois world of the Biedermeier era.