II. 2002 – 2008 Arbeitswelt in den USA - Tylle, H. D.

So whenever labor is depicted, the result necessarily involves a specific political and social tendency.
It is always partisan and never neutral, regardless of whether this is intentional. Any artistic depiction
of labor therefore contains a comment on the form of labor at that time. It reads, interprets, idealizes,
reflects, supports or undermines the prevailing views.
To illustrate this principle, let us take a brief look at the main historical stages in the depiction of labor.
– Medieval Bible illustrations largely used Biblical labor imagery, showing labor as a necessity imposed
by God or indeed a punishment. Such pictures were expressions of a moralizing attitude that
largely aimed to create an awareness of the unchangeable nature of labor and its forms of organization.
For many centuries therefore depictions of “Adam and Eve at Work” or “The Holy Family at
Work” served to illustrate a certain gender-specific division of labor: The woman – either Eve or Mary
– is at the spinning wheel, while Adam is chopping wood or digging holes and Joseph is working as
a carpenter. Biblical labor imagery can also be seen in numerous paintings of the Tower of Babel and
of parables of the sower, the laborers in the vineyard and the catch of fish.
– The royal books of hours of the Gothic period combined realistic depictions, on the one hand, with
a clear tendency towards reproducing the predominant feudalist mindset and its ”upper and lower”
stations, on the other. The main focus was therefore on the annual rhythm of agriculture, with the
prince’s residence at the top of the painting and peasants at the bottom.
– The large number of craftsmen’s sequences of the late Middle Ages, e.g. by von Amman, Luyken
and Weigel, are expressions of pride, assertiveness and moral justification of God-given and Godserving
labor within the inextricable context of a static order and an estate-based society. This was
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