Skizzenbuch c. 1881

Curator: Before us, we have "Skizzenbuch," or Sketchbook, from around 1881, crafted by Friedrich Metz and residing here at the Städel Museum. It appears to be created with pencil and coloured pencil on paper. Editor: Well, isn't that humble? Almost aggressively so. It has the quiet beauty of something overlooked, like a forgotten field guide lying in an attic. Curator: Indeed. Note the marbled effect on the cover, a somewhat conventional technique, yet rendered here with a fragility that betrays its function as a protective exterior. The vacant label begs the question: Whose book was this, and what secrets did it once hold? Editor: It's like staring at a tombstone for creativity. A repository. I'm curious to see the actual interior content that is behind it. I am instantly projecting whole imagined worlds into its blank pages. Worlds fighting for existence, all yearning for form! Curator: Precisely. Metz, even in this simple artifact, engages with complex issues of artistic creation, erasure, and potential. Observe how the texture fights with the rigid form of the rectangle... Editor: Like inspiration battling the constraints of a page? I get it! I imagine Metz maybe fidgeting in some cafe, his mind ablaze, rapidly sketching ideas and people around him in this very notebook, between coffee sips. Curator: A romantic vision, to be sure! The sketchbook becomes an allegorical device representing an artist’s mental landscape: Ordered yet chaotic. Contained, yet bursting with possibility. The label is ready to define, to make things understandable... but it remains pointedly blank. Editor: Leaving us to fill the blanks of our stories. Or Metz's stories, too? This thing whispers of untold stories. I almost feel bad for analysing its surface like this. What does it matter with such emptiness inside? It would be interesting to see what he kept hidden between the pages. Curator: Perhaps it’s more about the intent, than about what ended up actually on the page. It’s about considering, the potential energy humming beneath a seemingly banal facade. Editor: A blank canvas can be its own artwork. This object really whispers of the fragile beginnings of everything creative... Sobering. Curator: Well articulated. This humble "Skizzenbuch" provides a space to really analyse. Editor: Definitely it does; in a strange way I found this analysis to be rewarding, beyond my expectations.