Menzel was never as French as he was in the pastels he drew around 1850, and no other of his works bear such strong testimony to his affection as those depicting his sister. The image of pure grace and the sense of deep intimacy he has created using pastel chalks is simply captivating.
Adolph Menzel’s image of “Emilie” – a masterpiece
Menzel’s most frequent subject was his sister. She cared for her brother, the dwarf, for his entire life, even after her own marriage, and was Menzel’s closest companion after their mother died. She appears in paintings, pastels, drawings, and even prints. Always portrayed with affection, she also served as a model for his major works, such as the famed “Flute Concert.” A series of pastels exists in which she is depicted alone. The status of these works remains unresolved, as is reflected in their titles. Thus, the previous owner called this painting, “Costume Study of a Seated Female Model, Menzel’s Sister Emilie”. Yes and no. In order to understand what importance Menzel attached to such a work, it is necessary to take a step back. We need to understand why Menzel chose pastel as a medium, why he applied it primarily to brown paper, what motifs this manner was reserved for, and who the intended audience could have been.
Pastels were especially popular in France in the 18th century. Specialists like Maurice Quentin de la Tour or Jean-Étienne Liotard dedicated themselves largely to this technique, but it played an important role for Watteau as well. He used pastels in a special technique known as “aux Trois Crayons” by the French, in which only three crayons are used: white, black, and red. Those are clearly the dominant colors in the present drawing. It is difficult to say whether Menzel might have seen original pastel drawings by Watteau, who is not mentioned in Menzel’s correspondence. In any case, it matters little, because in the 18th century, pastels made using the “Trois Crayons” technique — such as those by Boucher, Watteau, or van Loo — could already be reproduced in three-color prints using a newly invented printing technology known as the “crayon manner.” The most important forerunner of the “Trois Crayons” technique was Peter Paul Rubens, who set his portraits — especially of his family — to paper using the aforementioned three crayons. Menzel frequently cites Rubens as an inspiration in his correspondence, but we should not lose sight of one important difference between the two artists, which also applies to most French pastel drawings: Rubens’ pastels preserve the character of a hand drawing primarily by allowing the paper to show through, thus giving it a strong role to play. Menzel’s pastels have the character of a full-color image to a greater degree, somewhat closer to paintings than drawings. And yet, since Rubens also used brown paper, his pastel works, like Menzel’s, give the impression of four colors. This calls to mind a famous anecdote about the ancient Greek painter Apelles, which was first recounted in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History and has since been retold in countless art-historical texts. Supposedly, Apelles chided his contemporaries for their penchant for pomposity and the overuse of color. He claimed that a true artist, like himself, could depict anything with just four colors. He named the colors as well: red, yellow (he apparently meant a shade of ochre), black, and white. Consider further that Titian is said to have applied paint in a medium shade to the canvas as a bed for further color, which he darkened or lightened through the addition of further paint, then the larger tradition in which Menzel stands also becomes clear. The medium shade, serving as the dominant color, is an ochre of brownish-yellow hue, an earthy shade from which all is shaped. Just as God created man out of clay, the artist summons his picture forth from the ground on the canvas, likewise a creator. This ennobles the resulting picture considerably.
Upon closer examination, while the four colors do clearly dominate, and the background color shows through in many places and thus becomes one of the colors of the depicted subject, Menzel lightens the ochre-brown tone in the hands and the face. In Emilie’s red jacket as well, ruched at the waist, there is a barely perceptible expansion of the color palette. Where the light — surprisingly coming from the right — hits the jacket, Menzel adds a few minute strokes of yellow and bright blue. The latter can also be seen in the parts of the jacket that are in the shadows. Their function is clear; they serve to lend a lifelike quality to the picture. So does the heavy use of white on the dress, the collar, and the cuffs — where, incidentally, Menzel’s light sketch with a sharp black crayon is easily discerned. The use of yellow and blue strokes on the red jacket is no coincidence; red, yellow, and blue comprise the Aristotelian color triad, framed by the so-called “non-colors” black and white. Thus, the entire color spectrum is present, and two color theories interpenetrate one another.
Emilie is sitting on a sort of low wooden box, leaning on her left hand while her right hand rests on her knee. Her gaze is directed downward, so that we can only guess at her facial expression. Indeed, as the former title suggested, our attention is focused on her pose and the garment itself. With light smudging, Menzel blurs the picture toward the left and right borders of the page, thereby focusing our attention on the center. When one looks through Menzel’s portrayals of his sister in drawings and paintings, it quickly becomes clear that he sought to capture her attitude in unobserved moments, in unusual and transitory poses, as if he might thereby convey more of her essence. In this respect, the pastel also shows a direct connection to the Hamburg oil sketch of a sleeping Emilie from 1849. On the other hand, everything that Menzel drew served as a study for him. Although often not created for a particular purpose, Menzel’s collected drawings formed a reserve that he could call upon for other works when needed. He often marked successful drawings with a small cross on the border to indicate that they were especially suitable for reuse. His pastels, however, are more ambitious — they are full-fledged works of art, albeit with a double limitation. First, they were mere depictions of a fleeting state, without a narrative. Second, they remained in the private sphere, since they were not originally intended for sale. This corresponds to their status as a form in between drawings and paintings. They are not purely studies, but they are also not official artworks. This lends them a special charm. They allow us to observe Menzel at work and reconstruct his process, while simultaneously affording us a glimpse into Menzel’s carefully protected private life.
In this way, the present work allows us to understand more of Menzel. On the one hand, he absorbs everything he sees as soberly and precisely as possible. On the other hand, he only acknowledges his feelings in the shelter of privacy. This pastel will most likely have remained in his family sphere, which makes the depiction of his sister so touching. At the same time, it is a singular masterpiece of a caliber that rarely appears on the market anymore today.
Werner Busch