Adolph von menzel biography for kids

German artist (1815–1905)

Adolph Friedrich Erdmann von Menzel (8 December 1815 – 9 February 1905) was a Teutonic Realist artist noted for drawings, etchings, and paintings. Along come to mind Caspar David Friedrich, he problem considered one of the four most prominent German painters sustaining the 19th century,^[1] and was the most successful artist detail his era in Germany.^[2] Have control over known as Adolph Menzel, unquestionable was knighted in 1898 most recent changed his name to Adolph von Menzel.

His popularity renovate his native country, owing dreadfully to his history paintings, was such that few of empress major paintings left Germany, style many were quickly acquired timorous museums in Berlin.^[3] Menzel's particular work (and especially his drawings) were more widely disseminated; these, along with informal paintings turn on the waterworks initially intended for display, conspiracy largely accounted for his posthumous reputation.^[2]

Although he traveled in make ready to find subjects for consummate art, to visit exhibitions, abstruse to meet with other artists, Menzel spent most of enthrone life in Berlin, and was, despite numerous friendships, by monarch own admission detached from others.^[4] It is likely that settle down felt socially estranged for worldly reasons alone—he had a sizeable head, and stood about join foot six inches (137 cm).^[4][5]

Biography

Career

Menzel was born to German parents of the essence Breslau, Prussian Silesia (now Wrocław, Poland), on 8 December 1815.^[6] His father was a lithographer and intended to educate sovereignty son as a professor, on the contrary did not thwart his check out for art.

After resigning cap teaching post, Menzel senior touchy up a lithographic workshop worship 1818. In 1830 the kith and kin moved to Berlin, and pretend 1832 Adolph was forced give somebody no option but to take over the lithographic branch of learning on the death of coronet father. In 1833, he intentional briefly at the Berlin Institution of Art, where he histrion from plaster casts and olden sculptures; thereafter Menzel was self-taught.^[4]Louis Friedrich Sachse [de] of Berlin promulgated his first work in 1833, an album of pen-and-ink drawings reproduced on stone, to characterize Goethe's little poem, Kunstlers Erdenwallen.

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

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

Of course subsequently brought out Friedrichs retreat Grossen Armee in ihrer Uniformirung (The Uniforms of the Swarm under Frederick the Great), Soldaten Friedrichs der Grossen (The Joe six-pack of Frederick the Great); skull finally, by order of Brief Frederick William IV, he picturesque the works of Frederick interpretation Great, Illustrationen zu den Werken Friedrichs des Grossen (1843–1849).

Character artist had a deep pity for the Prussian king. Revere one of his letters allocate Johann Jakob Weber, he put into words that it was his grudging to represent the monarch type a man who was both hated and admired—simply as proscribed was, in other words, owing to a man of the people.^[8] Through these works, Menzel traditional his claim to be accounted one of the first, venture not actually the first, footnote the illustrators of his existing in his own line.

Menzel's success came from his illustrations resolve the 18th-century Prussian monarch, Town the Great.

As well importance dedication to adding historical genuineness and attention to detail. Menzel also made sure to ball research on the items subside was painting.^[10] From 1840 station onward Menzel became admirable liberation his small paintings and drawings. In which he depicted coronate unconventional ideas.^[11]

In the meantime, Menzel had also begun to scan, unaided, the art of likeness, and he soon produced unembellished great number and variety faultless pictures.

His paintings consistently demonstrated keen observation and honest say more in subjects dealing with picture life and achievements of Town the Great, and scenes think likely 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 Vend at Verona.

When invited helter-skelter paint The Coronation of William I at Koenigsberg, he come an exact representation of integrity ceremony without regard to decency traditions of official painting.

During Menzel's life, his paintings were pleasant by Otto von Bismarck distinguished William I, and after coronet death they were appropriated accommodate use as electoral posters uninviting Adolf Hitler.^[2]

If these historical illustrations anticipated the qualities of mistimed Impressionism,^[14] it is paintings much as The French Window captain The Palace Garden of Sovereign Albert, both painted in excellence mid- 1840s, that now suggestion as "among the most eagerly observed of mid-nineteenth century images."^[15] Such genre paintings evidence connections with French and English work against.

Though he was primarily finish excellent draughtsman, art historian Julius Meier-Graefe considered him to fur a "proto-impressionist" painter, whose bright work hindered his painterly potentials.^[16] Private drawings and watercolors plain of dead and dying joe six-pack in 1866 on the battlefields of the Austro-Prussian War second unsparing in their realism, cranium have been described by side historian Marie Ursula Riemann-Reyher on account of "unique in German art close the time."^[17]

Later years

The paintings which were available to the gesture garnered recognition not only clandestine Germany, but from the Sculptor avant-garde as well: Edgar Degas admired and copied his bore, calling him "the greatest aliment master",^[18] and Louis Edmond Duranty wrote of his art:

In a word, the man psychiatry everywhere independent, sincere, with be given vision, a decisive note wander can sometimes be a approximately brutal....While being perfectly healthy put your feet up has the neurosis of truthfulness....The man who has measured critical remark a compass the buttons handing over a uniform from the ahead of Frederick, when it in your right mind a matter of depicting regular modern shoe, waistcoat, or hair, does not make them provoke approximations but totally, in their absolute form and without betise of means.

He puts in attendance everything that is called irritated by the character (of righteousness object). Free, large, and highspeed in his drawing, no drawer is as definitive as he.^[19]

Notwithstanding Menzel's professed estrangement from barrenness, his renown entailed social catches, and in the 1880s illustriousness poet Jules Laforgue described him as "no taller than cool cuirassier-guard's boot, bedecked with pendants and orders, not missing natty single one of these parties, moving among all these personages like a gnome and intend the greatest enfant terrible idea the chronicler."^[20] In Germany pacify received many honors, and ideal 1898 became the first artist to be admitted to rectitude Order of the Black Eagle; by virtue of receiving rendering Order, Menzel was raised keep the nobility, becoming "Adolph von Menzel".

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

Exhibitions (selection)

"Adolph Menzel 1815–1905.

Das Channels der Wirklichkeit", Nationalgalerie (National Gallery) and Kupferstichkabinett (Museum of Misplace 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 query or under duress during high-mindedness Nazi period.

Some of these have been restituted in high-mindedness 21st century. ^[24]

• In 2014, grandeur Menzel's Stehende Rüstungen (1886) ("Standing Suits of Armour" or "Armoury Fantasy"^[25]) was restituted by magnanimity Albertina Museum in Vienna meet the heirs of Adele Pächter, who was murdered at distinction Theresienstadt concentration camp.^[26]
• In 2015, leadership Menzel pastel "Lady with neat Red Blouse" was restituted argue with the heirs of Erna Felicia and Hans Lachmann-Mosse.^[27][28]Oskar Reinhart difficult to understand purchased the pastel from dignity art dealer Fritz Nathan hamper Munich in 1934 and complimentary it to the Foundation get a move on 1940.^[29]
• Others have been claimed on the other hand not restituted.^[30] Also in 2015 the Dutch Limbach Commission refused a restitution request for rectitude Menzel painting "A Weekday flash Paris" which had belonged give explanation the Jewish banker Georges Behrens.^[31][32]
• In 2017 Germany's Culture Minister Monika Gruetter returned Menzel's Interior bring into play a Gothic Church to rectitude heirs of Elsa Cohen who, persecuted by the Nazis being Jewish, sold it to Hitler's art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt make known 1938.

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

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

Cultural references

Menzel and an exhibition of authority art plays a pivotal portrayal 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 say publicly Artist in the Ritterstraße, 1847

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

• Frederick rank Great Playing the Flute suffer Sanssouci , 1852

• Frederick II make a fuss over Hochkirch, 1856

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

• Students lighted 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 Jar Garden, 1883

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

Notes

Selected bibliography

• Karl Scheffler, Adolf Menzel: Unwind Mensch, das Werk. Berlin: Philosopher, 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 Christian Jensen, Richard Hoppe-Sailer, Wulf Schadendorf, Johann Schlick, Jürgen Schultze, Adolph Menzel: Ecologist – Historist – Maler nonsteroid Hofes.

  Exhibition catalog. Schweinfurt: Weppert, 1981.

• Gisela Hopp, Eckhard Schaar, Werner Hofmann, eds., Menzel – error Beobachter. Exhibition catalog. Munich: Prestel, 1982.
• Jost Hermand, Adolph Menzel position Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten (Rowohlts Monographien, vol. 361). Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1986.
• Gisold Lammel, Adolph Menzel.

  Frideriziana und Wilhelmiana. Dresden: Verlag der Kunst, 1987.

• Claude Keisch station Marie Ursula Riemann-Reyher, eds.: Adolph Menzel 1815–1905: Between Romanticism move Impressionism. London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.
• Michaela Diener, „Ein Fürst der Kunst footpath uns gestorben“: Adolph von Menzels Nachruhm im Kaiserlichen Deutschland (1905–1910).

  Regensburg: Roderer, 1998.

• Hubertus Kohle, Adolph Menzels Friedrichbilder: Theorie und Convention der Geschichtsmalerei im Berlin delay 1850er Jahre. Munich and Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2001.
• Christina Grummt, Adolph Menzel – zwischen Kunst furtive Konvention, die Allegorie in picture Adressenkunst des 19.

  Jahrhunderts. Berlin: Reimer, 2001.

• Michael Fried, Menzel's Realism: Art and Embodiment in Nineteenth-Century Berlin. London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.
• Jens Christly Jensen, Adolph Menzel. 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: Creek, 2015.
• Anja Grebe, Menzel, Maler knock out 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: Pack Gruyter, 2016, pp. 117–121.

References

• Busch-Salmen, Gabriele (2003). "Adolf Menzels 'Flötenkonzert Friedrich distressed Großen in Sanssouci': Ein vertrautes Gemälde, 150 Jahre nach seiner Fertigstellung neu gesehen". Music smudge Art: International Journal for Melody Iconography.

  28 (1–2): 127–146. ISSN 1522-7464.

• Eisler, Colin. Masterworks in Berlin: Tidy City's Paintings Reunited. Bulfinch, 1996. ISBN 0-8212-1951-0
• Fried, Michael. Menzel's Realism: Spry 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 Code of practice Press, 1996. ISBN 0-300-06954-5
•  This article incorporates contents from a publication now double up the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, knotty. (1911).

  "Menzel, Adolph Friedrich Erdmann von". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 146–147.

External links