Circuspferde, auf Tonnen balancierend 1878

Heinrich Lang created this drawing, "Circus Horses Balancing on Barrels," now housed in the Städel Museum. The piece immediately strikes you with its delicate lines and airy composition. Lang captures several horses in various poses, each perched precariously on a barrel. The structure of this work hinges on line quality. Lang’s light, tentative strokes create a sense of movement and fleeting balance, underscoring the precariousness of the circus act. The composition, spread across the page, invites a reading that is less about a singular, unified image and more about the multiplicity of perspectives and possibilities inherent in the performance. The barrels serve as plinths. They elevate the horses, literally and figuratively, disrupting conventional expectations of gravity and stability. The drawing, therefore, destabilizes the familiar image of the horse, recasting it in a theater of the unexpected. Lang's exploration of form is not just aesthetic but also philosophical, questioning what happens when the established order is turned upside down.