Hard Pressed: Queer Print Theory in Germany and Austria in the Long 19th Century

Abstract

This essay examines the ways in which the material realities of art print production opened onto the lived experiences of their queer makers and viewers in Germany and Austria during the long 19th century. After an initial analysis of how pressure registered in the work of German artist Sascha Schneider, I examine how the translation of works by the Tyrolean painter Franz von Defregger into print facilitated their collection by queer men across Germany and Austria. My final case study focuses on the print collection of the queer Austrian Archduke Ludwig Viktor, arguing that print collecting played a constitutive role in queer self-fashioning. Working through these three disparate case studies, I examine how the technical principles of pressure, translation, and incorporation might help us to revise and reimagine queer male subjectivity in the years around the turn of the 20th century.