Skizzenbuch 1837 - 1838

Editor: So, here we have Friedrich Metz’s "Skizzenbuch" from around 1837-1838. It looks to be ink drawings on wood, currently residing at the Städel Museum. I’m immediately struck by the texture, it’s…well, almost organic? Like looking at woodgrain but pushed to some abstract extreme. What do you see in this, besides obviously an incredibly sophisticated sketchbook cover? Curator: Ah, yes! Metz invites us to consider the poetics of the everyday, doesn't he? I see a dialogue between the artist’s hand and the inherent language of the material, a wooden canvas speaking in whispers of ink. Notice how those geometric abstractions, they’re not rigid, are they? Almost like clouds shifting across a painted sky. Editor: Shifting clouds, I like that. It definitely brings a softer feel to something that I initially saw as quite harsh in its geometric elements. Was there a particular artistic movement Metz was responding to here, or is it just…Metz being Metz? Curator: I believe Metz here reflects a shift. There is some Biedermeier sensibility, with its close observations of nature. But he departs into realms more subjective. Don't you feel a private narrative embedded in it? It's less about faithful transcription and more about triggering an emotion through abstraction. Does this then suggest other contemporary abstractionist explorations to you? Editor: It’s like… a tiny portal into his creative headspace! Before this conversation I would never connect it to abstraction. But I’m certainly starting to appreciate the mood more now, and its relationship to early abstraction movements. Thank you for opening my eyes to that! Curator: My pleasure. Perhaps we see not just what's on the wood, but into an echo of feeling, itself, something truly...sketch-like.