Finding Rest in Art: Moritz von Schwind’s ‘A Player With a Hermit’

Reaching Within: What traditional art offers the heart

A detail from “A Player With a Hermit,” circa 1846, by Moritz von Schwind. Oil on cardboard, 24 inches by 18 inches. New Pinacotheca, Munich, Germany. CC BY-SA 4.0

Amid our daily interactions and pursuits, we may dream of a quiet life out in the middle of nowhere, a place where there’s no social media and no mention of politics but instead harmony and peace—a place where we might simply get away from it all.

I recently came across “A Player With a Hermit” by the Austrian-born German painter Moritz von Schwind, and this painting reminded me of our need to rest our minds, bodies, and spirits.

The Romantic, Moritz von Schwind, and ‘A Player With a Hermit’

Schwind, a 19th-century Romantic painter, sometimes took elements from fairy tales and folk legends to craft painted scenes of an idealized Austrian and German land and culture.