Don Quixote, the reader
Don Quixote, reading in an armchair is the name of Adolf Schrödter’s painting from 1834.
Former copperplate engraver Adolf Schrödter was a member of the Düsseldorf school of painting, and was one of the first German artists to work with a different type of visualisation. His style is often considered a precursor to comic illustrations, which playfully and distinctly presented major social issues in an exaggerated manner. Schrödter’s new style of art made him a master of parody and humour in the 19th century. It’s thus no wonder that he selected literary figure Don Quixote as a motif to depict the iconography of scholars in tragedy, comicality, and greatness.
Don Quixote is the perennial tragic parody of popular, romanticised stories of knights in the early 17th century. These novels were in such high demand that new works were constantly being produced to satisfy ravenous readers. Over time, the stories took on ever more fantastical and bold dimensions, and this was met with utmost derision among many contemporaries – especially scholars. They warned in particular of a wide range of dangers that the reading of fiction can entail: a weakened mental state, inability to think clearly, and the mental enfeeblement of readers the more poorly written and unrealistic the works become.
In his novel The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, Miguel de Cervantes emphasises this critical view. His Don Quixote appears as a caricature and counterpoint to the archetypical, heroic knight of contemporary tales. His armour is bedraggled and has to be patched together with all manner of unlikely materials. The squire accompanying him is neither strong nor brave. Sancho Panza is fat, and is resigned to riding next to his lord on a donkey. As if this weren’t enough, this ridiculous knight famously charges toward windmills for lack of any real foes – an enemy that is not an enemy whatsoever, but which Don Quixote simply perceives as such. We see a knight who has lost his mind without an adversary.
Schrödter drives this motif home by painting Don Quixote in a study. He’s sitting in a corner of the intimidating armchair, reading scholarly tomes in utmost amazement so that he can understand the reality that he is cheated of on a daily basis. Yet this is all to vast and overwhelming for him, the simple man with no heroic qualities. The vastness of this collected knowledge is made clear in the picture’s perspectives. Don Quixote is nearly drowning in books and texts.