Hirtenjunge mit zwei Ziegen 

Ernst Schalck made this drawing of a shepherd boy with two goats using graphite on paper. The qualities of the pencil line are critical to this work's affect: it is tentative, light, and unpresuming. The artist has not belabored any part of the composition, allowing the blank page to show through, suggesting the openness of the landscape. In terms of labor, this is a quick sketch rather than a fully worked drawing. There is a directness to the artist’s hand, a sense of immediate communication. The subject – a youth in the role of a shepherd – also carries social significance. Throughout the 19th century, there was a growing fascination, even a romanticization, of rural labor. This drawing speaks to those cultural values, which are here expressed through the simplest of means. It reminds us that any work of art, even one so apparently modest, is a product of many choices: of materials, of processes, and of subject matter.