Le pauvre poèt, 1839
Carl Spitzweg came from well to do middle class circumstances and originally worked as a pharmacist. Only after suffering a serious illness did he decide to follow his real calling and dedicate himself entirely to painting. Thanks to his established position in society and an inheritance, he was able to practice his art with no financial worries. Nevertheless the loner Spitzweg, who was self-taught, insisted on acknowledgement as a professional artist. This, however, came only in 1868 when he was named honorary member of the Munich Art Academy. During his lifetime Spitzweg sold upwards of 400 paintings. His admirers and buyers came especially from the new buying power of the positioned middle class, even though the real popularity that he enjoys today came only after the second World War. Spitzweg¿s small-format genre paintings reflect the life of the lower middle-class ¿ the primarily non-political folk of the Restoration. Negative and disturbing elements are left out. For the most part the paintings show untroubled small town life or country idylls with somewhat eccentric, albeit harmless citizens who lead primarily tranquil lives. Even though Spitzweg repeatedly infuses these works with an ironic, mocking quality, the understated criticism, aimed at the self chosen limitations of the private existence of these individuals, is always rather kind-hearted. Spitzweg also showed an interest in landscape painting spurred on by his friendship with the artists Schleich and Morgenstern. His late landscape works stand out due to their very liberal painterly execution and realistic depiction and are a part of the progressive tendencies of the landscape painting movement of the day.