Posts Tagged ‘The 39 Steps’

The Great Carefree Life

June 29, 2023

Chienne nue selon Marcel René von Herrfeldt, © 2067 by Torsten Slama
The Great Carefree Life (Dorette lächelt), pencil, pastel on pink tone paper, A4

This drawing represents a merging of different concepts of past-century commercial art in a new format and humble pencil based execution. The body of the nude and the chair model it is sitting on are copied from a painting by the painter of highly refined and culturally significant glorified and painterly pin-up, Marcel René von Herrfeldt. The anthropomorphic dog concept is as old as humor and cats and dogs in art (see also anthropomorphic cats), but best exemplified by the work of Carl Robert Arthur Thiele (popularly referred to as Dackel-Thiele, Katzen-Thiele). To mirror the Anglophile tendencies in German and Austro-Hungarian high culture before and between the wars, the tapestry design in the background is taken from the 1935 film “The Thirty-Nine Steps”.

* * *

He walked along the private street leading to the Hildebrandts’ mansion, shrouded in darkness. He remembered that it was Thursday, the day of Abercron’s strange soirées. It occurred to him that he should warn Dorette, in case she had not already been arrested. Perhaps he would warn her, perhaps he would simply relish the idea that in front of this house every minute the criminal investigators should turn up. He did not know. (…) “Mr. Abercron”, cried Steegen, while trying to find his way towards him through the crowds. Suddenly, he saw Dorette. He wondered how it could be that he had not noticed her right away, as she was such an extraordinary apparition in the packed room. She sat there, smiling, and listened to Mr. Schwarzer. (Walther Haarich, Dorette Smiles, Ullstein, 1930)