Shaving Day at the Monastery 1887

Eduard von Grützner painted this scene of monastic life, titled "Shaving Day at the Monastery," sometime between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Grützner, living in Munich, partook in the historically inflected genre painting that was then in vogue in Germany. The painting stages a commonplace ritual, revealing how much of monastic life was both devotional and quotidian. The scene depicts a tonsorial haircut, a symbol of religious commitment that also raises questions about identity and conformity. What does it mean to choose a life set apart? To visibly commit to an order that transcends individuality? Grützner seems less interested in hagiography, or religious biography, and more interested in how these men negotiated spiritual ideals with daily life. In the faces of these monks, we might glimpse something of ourselves, our own struggles to reconcile ideals with the everyday, the sacred with the mundane. The shaving might stand as a metaphor for the layers of identity, of self, that we shed and renew.