The Networks 328 whether their self-conscious display served an ulterior, programmatic purpose. The furnishings of von Kügelgen’s studio are distinctly more opulent. Several portraits can be seen either hanging from or leaning against the side wall behind the artist at his easel. They allude to von Kügelgen’s main activity as a portraitist, although the artist never renounced the highest academic genre of history painting. A shelf on the opposite wall holds plaster casts of antiquities; piles of books on a table underscore his standing as pictor doctus. Mounted on the wall between the two windows directly behind him are two guns, with a lyre on the floor below. They stand for the occasional diversions recommended to the painter, for leisure and musical inspiration.5 Von Kügelgen’s painting utensils, above all pigment bottles – and possibly a wine decanter – are more plentiful than Friedrich’s, but there are no measuring tools in sight. In Kersting’s painting of Friedrich in his studio, their special importance to the artist is underlined by the fact that the point at which the brush protrudes from his right hand is where the maulstick and the T-square intersect, as if the accuracy of the depiction emanated from there. The following year, in 1812, Kersting painted a variant of the first picture with an even more pronounced programmatic agenda (fig. 3). Once again, the painting was accompanied by a pendant, this time in form of a similarly staged portrait of the history painter Friedrich Matthäi.6 A huge blank canvas is set up on the right in front of the darkened window; the artist evidently has grand ambitions. Here, too, we see a table with painting utensils; large folios lie on the floor. The painter asserts his claim to the entire tradition of painting in both theory and practice. Further to two plaster busts framing the upper reaches of the window, there is an ensemble of plaster figurines on a tripod stand, clearly arranged to form the scene of the Last Supper. Ever since Leonardo da Vinci at the latest, the disciples have been cast as representatives of different character traits, each with its own distinctive physiognomy. The disciples react to Christ’s announcement that one of them is going to betray him with expressions that correspond to their character. No wonder that the heads from da Vinci’s Last Supper, reproduced separately, served as inspiration for generations of artists.7 In Kersting’s second studio portrait of him, Friedrich, on the other hand, stands leaning against the tall backrest of a chair, palette, brush and maulstick in hand, gazing at a large landscape-format canvas, of which we only see the back. The arrangement of palettes, set square and ruler on the wall is the same as in the first picture. If we look very closely, we can spot a small well-thumbed booklet on the sill of the darkened window. The deeper meaning of this painting is revealed when we recognise its reliance on the golden ratio; Friedrich evidently familiarised Kersting with one of his fundamental compositional principles – their walking trip would have given him ample opportunity to do so. The left vertical runs exactly through the point where the brush protrudes from Friedrich’s hand. This could still be a coincidence if the lower horizontal line of the golden ratio did not pass through this point and the small booklet. We 2 Georg Friedrich Kersting Gerhard von Kügelgen in His Studio | 1811 Oil on canvas, 53.3 × 42 cm Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, inv. 2329 3 Georg Friedrich Kersting Caspar David Friedrich in His Studio (Berlin painting) | c. 1812 Oil on canvas, 51 × 40 cm Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie, ident. A I 931 4 Georg Friedrich Kersting Caspar David Friedrich in His Studio 1814–1819 | CAT 273
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