Tyll Ulenspiegel is the main character in Daniel Kehlmann’s novel Tyll. The novel is set during the Thirty Years’ War in Central Europe in the first half of the 17th century.
In this painting, Tyll arrives in a quiet German village with his small troupeâ Nele and the donkey. After entertaining the crowd with songs and plays, he ascends a tightrope above the square, radiating a sense of impossible lightness that captivates the weary townspeople. From this lofty perch he playfully orders everyone to remove their right shoe and hurl it skyward, a command the entranced villagers obey despite its absurdity. The shoes crash into a chaotic heap, and as Tyll mocks them and tells them to retrieve their own, old resentments erupt into a frenzied brawl. Everybody tries to get a better shoe than the one they had thrown in the air. Watching from above, amused by the havoc he has unleashed, Tyll eventually slips away with his troupe, leaving the village to tear itself apart.
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Wayne: I was fascinated by the rapid descent into chaos, and the surfacing of old grudges that occurred following what was seemingly a piece of light entertainment performed by a jester. Simmering tensions were reignited between brothers who had fallen out over girls in the distant past, and teenage girls found new reason to get their own back over a past slight that had manifested into a lingering insult.