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

time, his paintings were highly realistic, leaving out any embellishments. His most important works
during that period included his “Women Plucking Geese” (1871/72), “The Preserve Makers” (1879)
and “The Net Menders” (1887/89).
While Menzel’s “Iron Rolling Mill” was highly popular and widely celebrated because it suited Germany’s
capitalist optimism of the industrial revolution, Liebermann’s paintings evoked rather touchy
responses among the upper classes with their realistic depictions of genuine working situations, and
he was therefore reviled as a “gutter artist” for many years to come.
– Depictions of labor in Germany since the turn of the century particularly vividly support the hypothesis
that such paintings are fundamentally political in orientation. This historic breakthrough in
realistic depictions of labor led to the development of two major strands:
(1) On the one hand, there was a conservative strand (e.g. Arthur Kampf, Friedrich Kallmorgen,
Leopold von Kalckreuth and Friedrich Keller) where labor and industry were frequently idealized and
glorified, often in a blissfully romanticized and reactionary vein and therefore on an affirmative note.
(2) On the other hand, there was also a strand with socialist leanings which started with Käthe Kollwitz,
Bernhard Hoetger and Hans Baluschek and then developed further between the two world
wars within that broad field of critical realism and indeed verism (e.g. Gerd Arntz, Otto Dix, George
Grosz, Conrad Felix Müller, Franz Seiwert, Heinrich Hoerle, Otto Griebel, Oskar Nerlinger, etc.).
- After 1945 the labor theme was largely assigned to the periphery. This was mainly due to an art
policy that gave preference to formal abstraction. Some artists, however, relatively seamlessly con-
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