The Sentry, knitting

Spitzweg returned repeatedly to the figure of the bored or sleeping soldier — a subject that allowed him to deflate military pretension with the simple observation that garrison duty involved far more waiting than heroics. The Sentry, Knitting (1855) is among his most celebrated treatments of this theme: a sentry on duty has resorted to knitting, the most domestically peaceful of occupations, rather than maintaining vigilant watch. The visual joke requires no caption. The Museum Georg Schäfer's Spitzweg collection preserves numerous works in this vein, constituting perhaps the most sustained comic investigation of military inactivity in European art. For Spitzweg, who grew up in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars and lived through the failed revolutions of 1848, the gap between martial imagery and the mundane reality of soldiering was a permanent source of humor — and perhaps mild political commentary.

Canvas with oil applied in Spitzweg's mid-career manner — figures are solidly placed in architectural settings with warm, amber-toned light suggesting drowsy interior or shaded outdoor spaces. The sentry's posture is masterfully arranged to convey both formal military upright-ness and the total relaxation of knitting simultaneously.