Disciple of the Austrian painter
Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, On several occasions he exhibited his work at the
Österreichisches Kunstverein (Austrian Arts Club). Showing familiarity with Jewish life, Schleicher exhibited genre paintings with Jewish scenes. He specialized in oil painting and shows the influence of
Dutch Golden Age painting of the 17th century. Schleicher is particularly known for the anecdotal component of his work. He individually portrayed the different characteristic types of his time, some of them dedicated to reading or writing. Among these works,
The Drinker,
The Card Player and
The Musician stand out.
The Scribe involves a Benedictine monk with glasses, busy writing something that he inscribes with the help of a pen on several papers. Preserved in the Bury Art Museum in Manchester,
Study of an Old Man presents an old man with a cigar and a beer jug. File:Carl Schleicher Schreibender Mönch.jpg|
Monk writing File:Carl Schleicher Lesender Mönch.jpg|
Monk reading File:Carl_Schleicher_Schuster.jpg|
The Cobbler. File:Carl Schleicher Der Bücherwurm.jpg|
The Bookworm. Some of Schleicher's paintings present genre scenes, such as
Tavern Scene,
Drinkers,
In the tavern and
The chess players. Other works have a certain intimacy, notably
La toilette and ''Grandma's birthday''. The anecdotal nature of Schleicher's painting is in turn evident in works such as ''Thief in the artist's studio
, Long live the wine
, The broken container
, A rare piece
and The winning hand'' . Schleicher also painted groups of priests and rabbis. The figure of the
Christian priest is introduced individually in
Old Man Writing a Diary and is taken up in group terms in
The Chess Players, where a Benedictine monk measures himself against a Dominican one, while another, a Franciscan, observes the game between the two. As far as
Judaism is concerned, Schleicher was particularly interested in
rabbinic activity around the
Talmud, thus creating works such as
Rabbis in debate and
A Talmudic dispute.
Paintings of rabbis and talmudists A part of Carl Schleicher's output is closely related to Judaism and Ashkenazi life. The exchange of ideas and interpretations between the
rabbis and
talmudists was a topic to which Schleicher dedicated a considerable number of oil paintings. Loaded with anecdotal material, such paintings constitute a valuable record of the practices and customs of Ashkenazi Jews in Europe, whose culture and heritage are known as
Yiddishkayt. Schleicher's record is valuable because most of Europe's Ashkenazi communities and their cultural diversity have been lost due to the
Shoah. The theme addressed by Schleicher concerns both the
Jewish dialectical-exegetical experience and
modern art. Schleicher's paintings are characterized by being not only descriptive, but also by sharply capturing the atmosphere of study that governed the life of the Talmudists: seriousness and dedication, with interesting dialogues and surprising ideas, but also problematic contradictions, endless arguments and humor. File:Carl Schleicher Beim Rabbi.jpg|''At the Rabbi's'' is a work that deals with the serious explanation given by an Ashkenazi leader about the Talmud. File:Carl Schleicher Jüdische Szene 1.jpg|In
Jewish Scene I, Schleicher presents an elderly rabbi giving his interpretation of a certain matter through a
haggadah from the Talmud. File:Carl Schleicher Jüdische Szene 2.jpg|
Jewish Scene II is a painting that shows Talmudists conversing about the meaning of a Talmudic passage. File:Carl Schleicher Eine Streitfrage aus dem Talmud.jpg|Dramatic effect in
A controversy from the Talmud, where Schleicher has portrayed the different attitudes of the Talmudists: conviction and assertiveness, opposition and rejection, attention and amazement. == External links ==