Schoolboys

This hand-colored lithograph by Erik Obermann depicts two uniformed schoolboys in contrasting dress and demeanor. The smaller figure on the left, rendered with exaggerated features and reddish hair, wears a military-style jacket with green trousers and holds a cigarette in affected pose. His taller companion displays a more austere bearing in formal black dress uniform. The print belongs to a tradition of German Bilderbogen—picture-sheets combining caricature, satire, and social commentary for mass circulation. Like the work of Daumier and earlier European satirists, Obermann used physical distortion and costume to mock social types and hierarchies. Here, the contrast between the two figures suggests commentary on class, military culture, or adolescent pretension in turn-of-century society. The ethnic caricature typical of the period is evident in the exaggerated physiognomy of the left figure.