Biography of adolf von menzel

 

Modern Art

During the s he broadened his repertoire to include scenes from modern, contemporary life, and events of more recent German history. He was the first German artist to depict the aesthetic side of industry - as in The Steel Mill (, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin).

Another of his 'modern' works was Afternoon in the Tuileries Gardens (, National Gallery, London), based on a series of sketches the artist made during a visit to Paris that year to see the Universal Exposition. Probably inspired by Edouard Manet's own somewhat looser treatment of the Tuileries Gardens, Menzel's depiction of this bustling scene, replete with incidental details, remains wholly legible.

In addition, his architectural realism is evident in The Interior of the Jacobskirche at Innsbruck (, National Gallery of Art, Washington).

Pioneer of Impressionism

Curiously although Menzel achieved widespread contemporary recognition for his lithography and historical paintings, it was his little-known exploration of smaller-format genre painting for which he is now rightly famous.

Biography of adolf von menzel Reputation as a Painter. The heirs believe the works, a drawing by Adolph Menzel and a Liebermann study, were sold under duress shortly before her death or, more likely, confiscated and sold shortly after. The eighteenth-century king had become an ideal. Other 19th Century German Painters.

Including a number of interiors and informal landscapes, these unorthodox, freely-expressed canvases demonstrate great skill in their treatment of light and point unmistakably towards Impressionism, anticipating works by Degas and other Impressionist painters.

This pioneering style is exemplified in one of his greatest genre paintings - Living Room with the Artist's Sister (also known as The Artist's Sister with a Candle, or Emilie at the Parlour Door) (, Neue Pinakothek, Munich).

It is one of numerous images inspired by the artist's private life and was never exhibited publicly by Menzel himself. The picture depicts his year old sister Emilie, who kept his household for him. Its quiet, Biedermeier mood contrasts with the moving play of light and shadow in which the details of figures and objects become less recognizable.

Menzel lingers lovingly on the soft, round face of the girl in the doorway who looks dreamily out of the picture. The main attraction of this work is the ephemeral quality of the scene: the light and shade as well as the girl's position, half-in, half-out of the door, exist for just that moment. The fleeting nature of the scene is reinforced by Menzel's Impressionistic technique.

Biography of adolf von menzel free In the last decades of the twentieth century, it was the subject of countless dissertations, books, and exhibits. Fronleichnamsprozession in Hofgastein , Yet his rich and multifaceted oeuvre continues to preoccupy and fascinate scholars and art lovers to this day. Modern Art During the s he broadened his repertoire to include scenes from modern, contemporary life, and events of more recent German history.

Other works in a similar vein include The French Window (, SMPK, Berlin) and The Balcony Room (, SMPK, Berlin).

Astonishingly, Menzel kept these works hidden throughout his lifetime. Indeed, not only did he suppress this 'Impressionist' side of his art, but also he was quite disparaging about Impressionist paintings in general, preferring instead the highly formal academic art of Ernest Meissonier (), the doyen of the French Academy.

Reputation as a Painter

Short of stature - he was only four foot six inches tall - Menzel spent most of his long life in Berlin.

Among his most gripping works were the drawings and watercolours he produced in of dead and mutilated soldiers during the Austro-Prussian War. Revered by numerous German masters, including the modernist Max Klinger (), as well as the great French Impressionist Degas who called him the "greatest living artist", he received many honours, and was raised to the nobility, becoming "Von Menzel".

He was also elected a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris, and the Royal Academy in London. After his death at the age of ninety, Menzel was given a state funeral in recognition of is artistic achievements.

Other 19th Century German Painters

Other painters belonging to the realism movement in Germany during the nineteenth century include: the landscape artist Joseph Anton Koch (), the great Romantic Caspar David Friedrich (), the early Biedermeier exponent Carl Spitzweg (), the eminent society portraitist Franz von Lenbach (), the meticulous Wilhelm Leibl (), the naturalist painter Hans Thoma () and the German Impressionists Max Liebermann (), Max Slevogt () and Lovis Corinth ().

Paintings by Adolph Menzel can be seen in many of the best art museums throughout the world.