Mischief in the Classroom by the Styrian Painter Ferdinand Mallitsch from 1876

The classroom with teacher and pupils had been of artistic interest to painters since the Middle Ages, and in the 19th century it became academic schooling in Graz and Vienna and study trips as far as Paris, the Styrian painter Ferdinand Mallitsch, already noted by his contemporaries for the quality of his work, took up the subject of school painting when his two sons were growing up, adding to his previous interest in landscapes, portraits and family scenes. He depicted a lively classroom break in a dynamic, dramatic painting with more than twenty exuberant pupils caught in the moment of the teacher's arrival. This interesting motif in the history of education has not been overlooked among classroom scenes, but it is not very well known. However, with the availability of the Internet, it is becoming even more prominent. This classroom motif from 1876, presented here as Mischief in the Classroom, Schulklasse, and Vor der Schule. Born in Graz in 1820, the painter helped to shape a particularly German part of the culture of the then German and Slovenian-speaking Styria as one of the lands of Habsburg Austria. But the artistic expression speaks beyond language and time.