Uitvoering van het toneelstuk Minna von Barnhelm 1783

Daniel Chodowiecki created this etching, "Performance of the play Minna von Barnhelm," to illustrate a popular work of German Enlightenment theatre. Consider the theatrical setting itself, with its proscenium arch. This was a time when the rising merchant classes sought cultural capital in the same forms previously enjoyed only by aristocrats, like theatre. Note how the figures here are arranged in a shallow space almost as if on a stage. The very act of depicting a play within a print suggests that printed matter and the institutions of art were becoming increasingly democratized. The play itself, written by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, challenged rigid social hierarchies by portraying the ennobling power of love between people of different ranks. To truly understand this image, one might research the history of theatre in 18th-century Germany, the rise of the Enlightenment, and the social function of printed images. This artwork reflects and comments on the changing social structures of its time.