Sketching through the Keyhole

Daniel Niklaus Chodowiecki (1726 – 1801) was a Polish-German artist who became the head of the Berlin Academy of Art.

He drew devotedly from life. In his autobiography, he said that he would sketch ordinary people without asking permission, “doing everything as clandestinely as possible.”

(Left: Soldier’s wife begging)
He continued, “For if a woman (and sometimes also a man) knows that one is trying to draw her, she wants to present herself favorably and ruins everything; her posture becomes forced.

I didn’t let it bother me if people ran off when I was only half done, for I had gained so much! What wonderful groups with light and shadow I sometimes entered in to my pocketbook, with every advantage that Nature has over all the vaunted ideals if left to herself...”

“I drew standing, walking, riding on horseback; through the keyhole, I sketched girls in bed in the most lovely positions left entirely to themselves.”

Quoted from the book Menzel's Realism: Art and Embodiment in Nineteenth-Century Berlin

Wikipedia on Daniel Niklaus Chodowiecki 
Previously: Caught Looking