The narrow horizontal format, described by Spitzweg as "slim strips", shows the hermitage built into the barren, stony landscape, modeled atmospherically from ocher and brown tones, with the hermit reading on a simple bench at the table in front of it. Spitzweg stages the scene of the dwelling, which is pieced together from ruin-like stones, planks and pieces of rock, entirely out of the changeable chiaroscuro and creates effective perspectives of the blue sky and the creek bed. Inspired by the rock caves of the hermitage St. Magdalenen in Switzerland, which he visited in 1841/42, the motif of the Christian hermit in a cowl appeared in his repertoire from then on. However, our hermit with the gray-haired philosopher's head is reminiscent of the pre-Christian predecessors, the Greek anchorites. The most famous figure of such a way of life is Antony the Great, who withdrew to the Egyptian desert in the 3rd century, initially to an abandoned fort on the banks of the Nile. Above all, the motif of the legend about the temptations of this forerunner of Christian monasticism went down in art history, which led to outstanding pictorial inventions. Spitzweg also made a “Versuchung des Heiligen Antonius” (Temptation of Saint Anthony, Wichmann 833). What is also impressive about the small format is the movement of the reduced landscape in its natural and architectural rock formations, which must have challenged Spitzweg as a nature observer interested in geology in his painting. [KT]