Dates | 1815 - 1905 |
Roles | Artist |
Nationality | German |
Menzel's motto expressed his work ethic and his preoccupation with recording the world. More than 10,000 of his drawings survive. The trailblazer of German Realist painting, Menzel aimed to create images that were more true-to-life and precise than photographs.
Menzel's height--four feet, seven inches--destined him to be an outsider. One of Edgar Degas's friends remembered Menzel at a ball: a small man with glasses, speaking little, drinking champagne, and sketching. Essentially self-taught, by seventeen he was supporting his mother and siblings by working in his late father's