Zwei stehende Kühe mit abgewandtem Kopf 

Curator: This drawing, housed right here in the Städel Museum, is called Zwei stehende Kühe mit abgewandtem Kopf. It's rendered with dry media, likely charcoal, by Friedrich Wilhelm Hirt. Editor: The ochre monochrome immediately sets a tone of rural austerity, wouldn't you say? It's simple, almost stark. Curator: Hirt, though not a household name, operated within a milieu grappling with shifting agricultural paradigms. We have the Industrial Revolution gaining momentum. Farm labor becoming increasingly gendered with women performing particular types of production in agricultural contexts. I think that adds complexity to such a seemingly pastoral image. Editor: Note how the artist uses the medium to emphasize volume and mass. The charcoal creates soft shadows suggesting robust forms despite minimal detail. It is structural economy. Curator: Exactly. I interpret that structural economy in relation to how industrial capitalism began devaluing traditional rural practices. This piece, devoid of overt sentimentality, avoids idealizing labor—these cows stand, heads turned, almost resistant. The composition, particularly their averted gazes, positions them not as symbols, but figures weathering systemic change. Editor: But the gaze is a human construct. We bring meaning to that averted face. Still, the angle has merit, pushing back from our easy observation. This does create an intriguing formal tension. Curator: Certainly. And considering livestock’s long entanglement with human systems of property, power, and colonial resource extraction… Hirt offers an unspoken, perhaps unintentional commentary. We must consider land rights and use with such art. Editor: Whether he was aware of it all consciously, I am not so sure. I appreciate how you frame it through our current perspectives and issues, giving an older piece immediacy and relevance. Curator: And I think, examining the formalism brings clarity, revealing how material choices inherently bear ideologies. It works, seeing art in dialogue, no? Editor: Perfectly. We see both art and history anew.