Standing bull to the right 

Here at the Städel Museum, you’re viewing Alfred Schnaars’ drawing, Standing bull to the right. The bull, rendered in graphite, dominates the composition with its solid mass and muscular form. The artist's dynamic use of line and shading brings a sense of weight and physicality to the animal. Schnaars masterfully uses chiaroscuro to model the bull’s body, creating a dramatic contrast between light and shadow that accentuates its three-dimensional presence. Through a semiotic lens, the bull embodies raw power and primal energy, qualities often associated with masculinity and virility. This artwork challenges traditional notions of beauty by elevating the mundane subject of a farm animal to a level of artistic significance. The very texture of the graphite on paper adds to the bull’s sense of rough, untamed vitality, inviting us to reconsider conventional aesthetic categories and power structures inherent in the act of representation.