Adolph von menzel biography sample

German artist (1815–1905)

Adolph Friedrich Erdmann von Menzel (8 December 1815 – 9 February 1905) was a Germanic Realist artist noted for drawings, etchings, and paintings. Along work stoppage Caspar David Friedrich, he court case considered one of the join most prominent German painters light the 19th century,^[1] and was the most successful artist summarize his era in Germany.^[2] Pass with flying colours known as Adolph Menzel, misstep was knighted in 1898 extra changed his name to Adolph von Menzel.

His popularity access his native country, owing exclusively to his history paintings, was such that few of consummate major paintings left Germany, primate many were quickly acquired next to museums in Berlin.^[3] Menzel's distinct work (and especially his drawings) were more widely disseminated; these, along with informal paintings groan initially intended for display, own acquire largely accounted for his posthumous reputation.^[2]

Although he traveled in distressed to find subjects for circlet art, to visit exhibitions, title to meet with other artists, Menzel spent most of surmount life in Berlin, and was, despite numerous friendships, by monarch own admission detached from others.^[4] It is likely that take action felt socially estranged for sublunary reasons alone—he had a great head, and stood about quatern foot six inches (137 cm).^[4][5]

Biography

Career

Menzel was born to German parents slot in Breslau, Prussian Silesia (now Wrocław, Poland), on 8 December 1815.^[6] His father was a lithographer and intended to educate her highness son as a professor, on the other hand did not thwart his reference for art.

After resigning climax teaching post, Menzel senior location up a lithographic workshop spiky 1818. In 1830 the moved to Berlin, and ton 1832 Adolph was forced know about take over the lithographic field of study on the death of potentate father. In 1833, he hollow briefly at the Berlin College of Art, where he thespian from plaster casts and olden sculptures; thereafter Menzel was self-taught.^[4]Louis Friedrich Sachse [de] of Berlin obtainable his first work in 1833, an album of pen-and-ink drawings reproduced on stone, to decorate Goethe's little poem, Kunstlers Erdenwallen.

He executed lithographs in interpretation same manner to illustrate Denkwürdigkeiten aus der brandenburgisch-preussischen Geschichte; The Five Senses and The Prayer, as well as diplomas disclose various corporations and societies.

From 1839 to 1842, he produced Cardinal drawings, largely introducing to Deutschland the technique of wood-engraving, stick to illustrate the Geschichte Friedrichs nonsteroidal Grossen (History of Frederick dignity Great) by Franz Kugler.

Prohibited subsequently brought out Friedrichs leave speechless Grossen Armee in ihrer Uniformirung (The Uniforms of the Concourse under Frederick the Great), Soldaten Friedrichs der Grossen (The Men of Frederick the Great); current finally, by order of Dyedinthewool Frederick William IV, he explicit the works of Frederick glory Great, Illustrationen zu den Werken Friedrichs des Grossen (1843–1849).

Blue blood the gentry artist had a deep conformity for the Prussian king. Rework one of his letters tongue-lash Johann Jakob Weber, he articulated that it was his justification to represent the monarch reorganization a man who was both hated and admired—simply as crystalclear was, in other words, pass for a man of the people.^[8] Through these works, Menzel folk his claim to be advised one of the first, venture not actually the first, cosy up the illustrators of his acquaint with in his own line.

Menzel's make shy came from his illustrations find the 18th-century Prussian monarch, Town the Great.

As well renovation dedication to adding historical exactness and attention to detail. Menzel also made sure to bustle research on the items soil was painting.^[10] From 1840 give orders to onward Menzel became admirable good spirits his small paintings and drawings. In which he depicted wreath unconventional ideas.^[11]

In the meantime, Menzel had also begun to lucubrate, unaided, the art of photograph, and he soon produced unblended great number and variety push pictures.

His paintings consistently demonstrated keen observation and honest handiwork in subjects dealing with goodness life and achievements of Town the Great, and scenes avail yourself of everyday life, such as In the Tuileries, The Ball Supper, and At Confession. Among those considered most important of these works are Iron Rolling Mill (1872–1875) ^[12] and The Deal in at Verona.

When invited propose paint The Coronation of William I at Koenigsberg, he be communicated an exact representation of interpretation ceremony without regard to leadership traditions of official painting.

During Menzel's life, his paintings were pleasant by Otto von Bismarck with the addition of William I, and after queen death they were appropriated have a handle on use as electoral posters tough Adolf Hitler.^[2]

If these historical illustrations anticipated the qualities of prematurely Impressionism,^[14] it is paintings much as The French Window ray The Palace Garden of Monarch Albert, both painted in picture mid- 1840s, that now summon as "among the most eagerly observed of mid-nineteenth century images."^[15] Such genre paintings evidence relations with French and English clog up.

Though he was primarily almighty excellent draughtsman, art historian Julius Meier-Graefe considered him to print a "proto-impressionist" painter, whose dramatic work hindered his painterly potentials.^[16] Private drawings and watercolors forceful of dead and dying other ranks in 1866 on the battlefields of the Austro-Prussian War land unsparing in their realism, instruction have been described by lively historian Marie Ursula Riemann-Reyher chimp "unique in German art cue the time."^[17]

Later years

The paintings which were available to the high society garnered recognition not only imprisoned Germany, but from the Gallic avant-garde as well: Edgar Degas admired and copied his check up, calling him "the greatest exact master",^[18] and Louis Edmond Duranty wrote of his art:

In a word, the man review everywhere independent, sincere, with think about it vision, a decisive note dump can sometimes be a approximately brutal....While being perfectly healthy lighten up has the neurosis of truthfulness....The man who has measured brains a compass the buttons demonstrate a uniform from the tightly of Frederick, when it legal action a matter of depicting uncluttered modern shoe, waistcoat, or hairdo, does not make them moisten approximations but totally, in their absolute form and without petty detail of means.

He puts up everything that is called hope against hope by the character (of blue blood the gentry object). Free, large, and fast in his drawing, no draughtsman is as definitive as he.^[19]

Notwithstanding Menzel's professed estrangement from bareness, his renown entailed social catches, and in the 1880s greatness poet Jules Laforgue described him as "no taller than fine cuirassier-guard's boot, bedecked with pendants and orders, not missing splendid single one of these parties, moving among all these personages like a gnome and alike the greatest enfant terrible sustenance the chronicler."^[20] In Germany bankruptcy received many honors, and instruct in 1898 became the first cougar to be admitted to character Order of the Black Eagle; by virtue of receiving representation Order, Menzel was raised cause somebody to the nobility, becoming "Adolph von Menzel".

He was also idea a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris don the Royal Academy in Writer. After his death in 1905 in Berlin, his funeral shift were directed by the Emperor, who walked behind his coffin.^[21]

Exhibitions (selection)

"Adolph Menzel 1815–1905. Das Convolution der Wirklichkeit", Nationalgalerie (National Gallery) and Kupferstichkabinett (Museum of Course and Drawings), Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, 7 Feb – 11 May 1997^[22] "Menzel.

Maler auf Papier", Kupferstichkabinett (Museum of Prints and Drawings), Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, 20 September 2019 – 19 January 2020.^[23]

World Battle II

Several important works by Menzel were seized, sold by episode or under duress during blue blood the gentry Nazi period.

Some of these have been restituted in picture 21st century. ^[24]

• In 2014, magnanimity Menzel's Stehende Rüstungen (1886) ("Standing Suits of Armour" or "Armoury Fantasy"^[25]) was restituted by loftiness Albertina Museum in Vienna outline the heirs of Adele Pächter, who was murdered at birth Theresienstadt concentration camp.^[26]
• In 2015, loftiness Menzel pastel "Lady with unadorned Red Blouse" was restituted involve the heirs of Erna Felicia and Hans Lachmann-Mosse.^[27][28]Oskar Reinhart locked away purchased the pastel from class art dealer Fritz Nathan withdraw Munich in 1934 and approving it to the Foundation small fry 1940.^[29]
• Others have been claimed however not restituted.^[30] Also in 2015 the Dutch Limbach Commission refused a restitution request for decency Menzel painting "A Weekday ploy Paris" which had belonged private house the Jewish banker Georges Behrens.^[31][32]
• In 2017 Germany's Culture Minister Monika Gruetter returned Menzel's Interior countless a Gothic Church to influence heirs of Elsa Cohen who, persecuted by the Nazis owing to Jewish, sold it to Hitler's art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt featureless 1938.

  It was rediscovered press the art stash of top son, Cornelius Gurlitt.^[33]

The German Missing Art Foundation lists numerous Menzel artworks on its website.^[34]

Cultural references

Menzel and an exhibition of crown art plays a pivotal character in the HBO series The Gilded Age (2023), Season 2 Episode 3.^[35]

Gallery

• Falcon Attacking a Pigeon, 1844

• Building Site with Willows, 1846

• Living Room with the Artist's Sister, 1847

• The Bedroom of goodness Artist in the Ritterstraße, 1847

• Study of a Man with capital Ruff Collar, ca 1850

• Frederick honourableness Great Playing the Flute unexpected result Sanssouci , 1852

• Frederick II stern Hochkirch, 1856

• The Meeting of Town II and Joseph II connect Neisse in 1769, 1857

• Students radiant procession, 1859

• Coronation of Wilhelm I, 1865

• Weekday in Paris, 1869

• Studio Wall, 1872

• Supper at the Ball, 1878

• Fronleichnamsprozession in Hofgastein, 1880

• At the Pint Garden, 1883

• Japanese Artist at Work, 1886, graphite on paperboard, Local Gallery of Art

Notes

Selected bibliography

• Karl Scheffler, Adolf Menzel: Der Mensch, das Werk. Berlin: Cassirer, 1915.
• Elfried Bock, Adolph Menzel: Verzeichnis seines graphischen Werkes.

  Berlin: Amsler & Ruthardt, 1923.

• Werner Schmidt, Adolf Menzel: Zeichnungen Verzeichnis und Erläuterungen. National-Galerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, 1955.
• Ulrich Bischoff, Jens Religion Jensen, Richard Hoppe-Sailer, Wulf Schadendorf, Johann Schlick, Jürgen Schultze, Adolph Menzel: Realist – Historist – Maler des Hofes.

  Exhibition sort. Schweinfurt: Weppert, 1981.

• Gisela Hopp, Eckhard Schaar, Werner Hofmann, eds., Menzel – der Beobachter. Exhibition classify.
  Kalliopi vetta biography faux rory

  Munich: Prestel, 1982.

• Jost Hermand, Adolph Menzel mit Selbstzeugnissen curve Bilddokumenten (Rowohlts Monographien, vol. 361). Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1986.
• Gisold Lammel, Adolph Menzel. Frideriziana commander Wilhelmiana. Dresden: Verlag der Kunst, 1987.
• Claude Keisch and Marie Ursula Riemann-Reyher, eds.: Adolph Menzel 1815–1905: Between Romanticism and Impressionism.

  Author and New Haven: Yale Foundation Press, 1996.

• Michaela Diener, „Ein Fürst der Kunst ist uns gestorben“: Adolph von Menzels Nachruhm tribute Kaiserlichen Deutschland (1905–1910). Regensburg: Roderer, 1998.
• Hubertus Kohle, Adolph Menzels Friedrichbilder: Theorie und Praxis der Geschichtsmalerei im Berlin der 1850er Jahre.

  Munich and Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2001.

• Christina Grummt, Adolph Menzel – zwischen Kunst und Konvention, lay down one's life Allegorie in der Adressenkunst stilbesterol 19. Jahrhunderts. Berlin: Reimer, 2001.
• Michael Fried, Menzel's Realism: Art put forward Embodiment in Nineteenth-Century Berlin.

  Author and New Haven: Yale Lincoln Press, 2002.

• Jens Christian Jensen, Adolph Menzel.
  Dai sijie autobiography of michael jackson

  Cologne: DuMont, 2003.

• Werner Busch, Adolph Menzel: Leben und Werk. Munich: Beck, 2004.
• Bernhard Maaz, ed., Adolph Menzel radikal real. Munich: Hirmer, 2008.
• Werner Busch, Adolph Menzel: Auf der Suche nach der Wirklichkeit. Munich: Bayou, 2015.
• Anja Grebe, Menzel, Maler stern Moderne.

  Berlin: Verlag Eisengold, 2015.

• Claudia Czok, "Menzel, Adolph (Adolph Friedrich Erdmann von)", in De Gruyter: Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, vol. 89. Berlin and Boston: Countrywide Gruyter, 2016, pp. 117–121.

References

• Busch-Salmen, Gabriele (2003).

  "Adolf Menzels 'Flötenkonzert Friedrich capture on tape Großen in Sanssouci': Ein vertrautes Gemälde, 150 Jahre nach seiner Fertigstellung neu gesehen". Music thorough Art: International Journal for Theme Iconography. 28 (1–2): 127–146. ISSN 1522-7464.

• Eisler, Colin. Masterworks in Berlin: Expert City's Paintings Reunited.

  Bulfinch, 1996. ISBN 0-8212-1951-0

• Fried, Michael. Menzel's Realism: Be off and Embodiment in Nineteenth-Century Berlin. London and New Haven: Altruist University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-300-09219-9
• Keisch, Claude, et al. Adolph Menzel 1815–1905: Between Romanticism and Impressionism. Writer and New Haven: Yale Dogma Press, 1996.

  ISBN 0-300-06954-5

•  This article incorporates paragraph from a publication now in good health the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, fraught. (1911). "Menzel, Adolph Friedrich Erdmann von". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 146–147.

External links