The Disparagers ('Die Neidlinge')

Bridges and viaducts held a particular fascination for Feininger from early on in his artistic career. The present etching is closely related to the drawing of the same year of the Viaduct of Meudon (see previous lot). In the print he completed the image by adding a fictitious, ancient cityscape, which seems to cling on to a steep hill and is completely dwarfed by the monumental building looming over it. He also added some cartoonish figures to the scene, staffage more than characters, which are pitiful and unnerving at once. The title The Disparagers, etched onto the plate at the lower sheet edge, does not offer much of an explanation, nor does the German title Die Neidlinge, which the artist added in pencil in the margin. One is left with an uneasy feeling of witnessing a clash of a traditional, settled way of life with a restless, industrial modernity of which the giant railway bridge is only an emblem.
The dedication dated 1922 confirms beyond doubt that this is one of the very rare early impressions; the larger edition was printed much later and does not print with such richness of tone and contrast.