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| Matsumura Goshun, Woodcutters (detail), ca. 1790 |
The two images here are details of paintings I saw at the Metropolitan Museum of Art the other day. The title of this post is thus misleading, as the details are from Japanese works. Yet, similarly laboring people would have been encountered by a wanderer in German lands in the 18th century: men carrying loads of straw or wood or a basketweaver. Both Anton Reiser and Jung-Stillings Lebensgeschichte describe encounters with such figures. (Click on images to enlarge.)
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| Matssumura Keibun, A Garden of Pictures (1814) |
The Wanderjahre is of course less of a realistic work than those two novels, but such comparisons are helpful as they show the difference in Goethe's preoccupations. Goethe is always intent on describing the flowers and the foliage, and the Japanese illustrator also does that in the charming woodblock below, combining both the labor and the cherry blossoms.
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| Matssumura Keibun, A Garden of Pictures (1814) |
Images: MMA 2015.300.2061; 2013.873
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