The Hypocrite

Religious hypocrisy was one of Spitzweg's recurring targets, and The Hypocrite (1860) delivers its verdict with characteristic lightness of touch. The subject — a man performing ostentatious piety while his actual character contradicts it — had a long lineage in Dutch and Flemish genre painting, but Spitzweg refreshes the type with his gift for physiognomy and situation. By 1860 he had refined his technique considerably, moving away from the tighter finish of his early work toward a looser, more painterly handling that allowed him to capture the nuances of character through abbreviated gesture. The Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, which holds this work, has one of the most comprehensive German collections of Romantic-era painting, and Spitzweg's satirical vein fits naturally within its holdings alongside Friedrich's transcendental landscapes and Richter's sentimental genre scenes.

Oil paint applied with mature confidence — the figure's smug self-satisfaction is conveyed through a few precise details of expression and posture rather than labored description. The palette is warm and domestic, placing the scene in an interior or sheltered outdoor setting with characteristic Biedermeier coziness.