The artist Wilhelm Leibl (1844–1900) dedicated himself to realistic but sensitive portrayals of everyday life in rural Germany. This painting shows an older peasant reading the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten. Leibl’s implied commentary on the ceremonial, gendered nature of newspaper reading (and the similarly gendered public discourse in which well-informed readers were supposed to participate) is amplified by the presence of two women who sit quietly in the background, gazing at each other but not engaging in conversation.
Source: Wilhelm Leibl, Der
Zeitungsleser [The Newspaper
Reader] (1891). Original: Folkwang Museum Essen. Reproduction:
The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der
Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002.
Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing
GmbH and made available on Wikimedia Commons,
www.commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Wilhelm_Maria_Hubertus_Leibl_005.jpg
Reading the Newspaper at Home (1880), published in German History Intersections, https://germanhistory-intersections.org/en/knowledge-and-education/ghis:image-50
