Menzel’s Iron Rolling Mill and the German Industrial Revolution: Political, Social, and Artistic Representations of German Industry in the 1870s
Menzel’s Iron Rolling Mill and the German Industrial Revolution: Political, Social, and Artistic Representations of German Industry in the 1870s
Françoise Foster-Hahn explains how Menzel’s Iron Rolling Mill represented a new vision of industry and how the new German government used it to present a modern, progressive vision of German history:
”In all these industrial portraits [William Bell Scott, Iron and Coal, Industry of the Tyne, 1861 (Wallington Hall, Northumberland); John Ferguson Weir, The Gun Foundry, 1866 (Putnam County Historical Society); Paul Meyerheim, History of the Locomotive, 1872 (Stadtmuseum, Berlin )] the physical realty and the product of the company move to the center; often the owners are included, as workers or observers, along with their families… Menzel, to the contrary, concentrated his eye on the worker, the modern technical production process and, as he stressed in his letter to the National Gallery, on the relatively new phenomenon of shift work. We can read the painting as a triptych, a complete composition representing the manufacture of railway tracks in the Königshütte in Upper Silesia.”
“The volatility of the 1870s can be detected in the reception history of the Iron Rolling Mill. One should remember that the picture was purchased by Liebermann a year after it was completed and was subsequently transferred from his private gallery to a public museum, Berlin’s new National Gallery. There it was not merely a dramatic showpiece in the quickly growing Menzel collection – together with the Flute Concert… – but also an outstanding element in the overall staging of the museum. As I have pointed out elsewhere, the opening exhibition of the National Gallery presented a new version of German history, a museum orientation in which history was constructed in pictures for the public of the new capital. The young empire had to discover a collective national identity, and the setting of the National Gallery could present a history in
Françoise Foster-Hahn explains how Menzel’s Iron Rolling Mill represented a new vision of industry and how the new German government used it to present a modern, progressive vision of German history:
”In all these industrial portraits [William Bell Scott, Iron and Coal, Industry of the Tyne, 1861 (Wallington Hall, Northumberland); John Ferguson Weir, The Gun Foundry, 1866 (Putnam County Historical Society); Paul Meyerheim, History of the Locomotive, 1872 (Stadtmuseum, Berlin )] the physical realty and the product of the company move to the center; often the owners are included, as workers or observers, along with their families… Menzel, to the contrary, concentrated his eye on the worker, the modern technical production process and, as he stressed in his letter to the National Gallery, on the relatively new phenomenon of shift work. We can read the painting as a triptych, a complete composition representing the manufacture of railway tracks in the Königshütte in Upper Silesia.”
“The volatility of the 1870s can be detected in the reception history of the Iron Rolling Mill. One should remember that the picture was purchased by Liebermann a year after it was completed and was subsequently transferred from his private gallery to a public museum, Berlin’s new National Gallery. There it was not merely a dramatic showpiece in the quickly growing Menzel collection – together with the Flute Concert… – but also an outstanding element in the overall staging of the museum. As I have pointed out elsewhere, the opening exhibition of the National Gallery presented a new version of German history, a museum orientation in which history was constructed in pictures for the public of the new capital. The young empire had to discover a collective national identity, and the setting of the National Gallery could present a history in
Cited: Facos, Michelle. An Introduction to Nineteenth Century Art. 1st ed. New York: Routledge, 2011. Print. Haines, Michael R. "Agriculture and Development in Prussian Upper Silesia, 1846–1913." The Journal of Economic History 42.02 (1982): 355-84. Print. Kamusella, Tomasz. Silesia and Central European Nationalisms: The Emergence of National and Ethnic Groups in Prussian Silesia and Austrian Silesia, 1848-1918. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue Univ., 2007. Print. Schofer, Lawrence. The Formation of a Modern Labor Force, Upper Silesia, 1865-1914. Berkeley: University of California, 1975. Print. Websites "Adolph Menzel, The Iron-Rolling Mill (Modern Cyclops) [Eisenwalzwerk (Moderne Cyklopen)] (1875)." GHDI - Image. Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2012. .