Emil Orlik
The Tavern on the Border with Saxony from Schiller’s “The Robbers”
1908
Gouache
Theater Studies Collection of the University of Cologne
The scene in this tavern is similar in structure to Kollwitz’s etching “Four Men in a Pub.” In this tavern scene, too, a dramatic conflict comes to a head. Here, the ‘good’ brother Karl receives a message forged by his “evil” brother that their father has disowned him.
Orlik (1870–1932) also places a group of men with their backs to the viewer in front of a window. With appropriate stage lighting from behind, the shadows cast here and there would suggest that events arising from the situation are about to unfold.