Johann Heinrich Merck

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Johann Heinrich Merck
Johann Heinrich Merck. Engraving by Karl Mayer-Nürnberg

Johann Heinrich Merck (born April 11, 1741 in Darmstadt ; † June 27, 1791 ibid) was a Darmstadt editor , editor and naturalist who wrote reviews , essays, among other things, on questions of art and narrative prose at the time of the Enlightenment .

life and work

Three weeks before Johann Heinrich Merck was born, his father Johann Franz Merck, a pharmacist from the Darmstadt family, died .

Merck attended the Ludwig-Georgs-Gymnasium in Darmstadt from 1752 and became a theology student at the University of Giessen on October 17, 1757 . In the summer of 1759 he switched to the University of Erlangen without a study goal . There he joined the German Society , in which the writing exercises of the members were discussed among themselves.

He left Erlangen in 1762 without a degree and began studying at the Dresden Art Academy , where he dealt with Christian Ludwig von Hagedorn's theoretical and historical views of art . He returned to Darmstadt in 1764 and traveled with Heinrich Wilhelm von Bibra as his court master in Switzerland , where he met Louise Françoise Charbonnier, the daughter of a respected lawyer, in Morges .

During a subsequent stay in southern France , Merck learned of the pregnancy of the young woman; he returned to Morges and married her on June 3, 1766. He then settled in Darmstadt, where he was appointed Secretary of the Secret Chancellery on March 30, 1767, Paymaster in 1768 and in 1774 as Council of War. Business trips took him to Kassel in 1767 and to Saint Petersburg in 1773 .

In 1771 he founded a publishing house for inexpensive reprints of Western European literature in the original language, later also for contemporary German works.

Merck's house was the center of the Darmstadt circle of the sensitive , the u. a. Maria Karoline Flachsland , Luise von Ziegler , Henriette Alexandrine von Roussillon and Franz Michael Leuchsenring belonged to and in the spring of 1772 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe joined.

After the death of the “Great Landgravine” Henriette Karoline in 1774, Merck tried in vain to get a new job in Kassel, Berlin and Weimar , among others . Other plans, for example as a freelance entrepreneur, were also unsuccessful. He had various financial transactions with Landgrave Georg Karl von Hessen-Darmstadt , which in the summer of 1788 contributed to the collapse of the cotton factory he had founded in the spring of 1787. On June 27, 1791, Merck died by suicide in Darmstadt when there were signs of severe physical suffering from depression .

Naturalist

From the beginning of the 1780s on, Merck was primarily concerned with mineralogy , osteology and palaeozoology . His first palaeontological treatise - Lettre à M. de Cruse sur les fossiles d'éléphants et de rhinoceros qui se trouvent dans le pays Hesse-Darmstadt ( letter to Mr de Cruse regarding the fossils of elephants and rhinos in Hessen-Darmstadt ) - appeared 1782. Peter Camper , Samuel Thomas von Soemmerring , Johann Friedrich Blumenbach , Horace-Bénédict de Saussure and many others valued Merck's work in the field of paleontology.

Friend of Goethe

Merck is closely connected to Goethe through his biography and his work. His drawing in the twelfth book of Poetry and Truth remains the most important source of the character of the childhood friend, although it emphasizes Merck's harsher features disproportionately.

“Born with understanding and spirit, he had acquired a very fine knowledge, especially of the more recent literatures, and looked around in world and human history for all times and regions. It was given to him to judge accurately and sharply. He was valued as a brave, determined businessman and a finished calculator. He entered everywhere with ease, as a very pleasant companion for those whom he had not made terrible by biting features. (...) There was a wonderful disproportion in his character: a good, noble, reliable man by nature, he had embittered himself against the world and let this cricket-sick trait reign in him in such a way that he felt an insurmountable tendency, deliberately a rogue, yes to be a rascal. Sensible, calm, good in a moment, it could occur to him in the other, how the snail stuck out its horns, to do something that offended or hurt another, yes, that was harmful to him. (...) The fact that he (...) went to work in a negative and destructive manner in all his work was uncomfortable for him, and he often said it (...). (...) if he once began to curse his abilities and was beside himself not being able to satisfy the demands of an exercising talent ingeniously enough, he soon abandoned the fine arts, now the poetry and thought about factory-like commercial ventures that bring in money should by making him fun. "

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe : Poetry and Truth. 12th book

Elsewhere, Goethe describes what is fertile and constructive in Merck's being.

“Merck's presence gave me a good touch, she didn't move anything for me, only stripped off a few dry shells and fixed me in the old good. By remembering the past and its way of imagining it, shown my actions in a wonderful mirror. Since he is the only person who fully recognizes what I do and how I do it, and yet sees it differently from how I see it from a different location, that gives a nice certainty. "

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe : entry in the diary of July 13, 1779

The correspondence with Goethe from 1776 onwards provides crucial information about the poet before his trip to Italy and especially with regard to his development as a natural scientist, since Merck was on a par with his friend in scientific contexts.

family

He married Louise Françoise Charbonnier on June 3, 1766. The couple had five sons - three of whom died young - and one daughter:

  • Wilhelm Merck (born August 27, 1782 - † November 25, 1820), chief forest officer, landscape painter
  • Carl Rudolph (1768–1835), assessor in the War Ministry
  • Adelheid (1771–1845) ∞ Johann Anton Merck (1756–1805), pharmacist, parents of the founder of the Merck company, Emanuel Merck

estate

Merck left behind an important collection of silhouettes from the Goethe era, which is one of the most important collections of its kind for the Werther era. It was edited by Leo Grünstein in 1908 . The creation and collection of silhouettes was a great fashion of the time, fueled not least by Johann Caspar Lavater's theory of physiognomics . Lavater and Merck conducted an intensive correspondence in this regard. Goethe sent Merck on December 5, 1774 his epistle with the song of the physiognomic draftsman.

Johann Heinrich Merck Prize , Honor and Medal

literature

  • Julia Bohnengel: "Cette cruelle affaire". Johann Heinrich Merck's book trade project and the Société typographique de Neuchâtel (STN). With the correspondence between Merck and the STN (1782–88). Wehrhahn, Hannover 2006, ISBN 3-86525-050-5 .
  • Adalbert Elschenbroich:  Merck, Johann Heinrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , pp. 117-120 ( digitized version ).
  • Marie-Theres Federhofer : "Moi simple amateur". JH Merck and scientific amateurism in the 18th century. Dissertation. University of Tromsø 1999. Wehrhahn, Laatzen 2001, ISBN 3-932324-75-7 .
  • Norbert Haas: The escape to things. Johann Heinrich Merck's first country novel. In: Gert Mattenklott , Klaus R. Scherpe (Hrsg.): Literature of the bourgeois emancipation in the 18th century. Scriptor, Kronberg im Taunus 1973, ISBN 3-589-00004-X , pp. 111-136.
  • Norbert Haas: Late Enlightenment. Johann Heinrich Merck between Sturm und Drang and the French Revolution. Scriptor, Kronberg im Taunus 1975, ISBN 3-589-20096-0 .
  • Ulrike Leuschner: Johann Heinrich Merck (= Meteors. Volume 2). Wehrhahn, Hanover 2010.
  • Franz Muncker :  Merck, Johann Heinrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1885, pp. 400-404.
  • Helmut Prang: Johann Heinrich Merck. A life for others. Insel, Wiesbaden 1949.
  • Walter Schübler : Johann Heinrich Merck (1741–1791). Biography. Hermann Böhlaus successor, Weimar 2001.
  • Fritz Ebner : Johann Heinrich Merck (1741–1791). A life for freedom and tolerance - contemporary documents. Merck, Darmstadt 1991.

Web links

Commons : Johann Heinrich Merck  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Karl Robert Mandelkow , Bodo Morawe: Goethe's letters. Hamburg edition in four volumes. Vol. 1: Letters from 1764-1786. 2nd Edition. Christian Wegner Verlag, Hamburg 1968, p. 629.
  2. ↑ a b c d Mandelkow, Morawe 1968, p. 630.
  3. ^ Johann Heinrich Merck, Correspondence. Volume 1, p. 558 ( books.google.de ).
  4. ↑ Mandelkow, Morawe 1968, p. 631.
  5. ↑ Mandelkow, Morawe 1968, p. 723.
  6. ^ Helmut Prang: Johann Heinrich Merck. A life for others. Insel Verlag, Wiesbaden 1949, p. 225; quoted from Mandelkow, Morawe 1968, p. 723.
  7. ↑ Mandelkow, Morawe 1968, pp. 629-630. For Goethe's description, see Hamburg edition, vol. 9, p. 505ff. (the.)
  8. ^ After Karl Alt (ed.): Goethe's works. Seventeenth Part: Poetry and Truth. Eleventh through twentieth books. Bong, Berlin / Leipzig / Vienna / Stuttgart n.d., pp. 55–56.
  9. ^ After Mandelkow, Morawe 1968, p. 630.
  10. ↑ Leo Grünstein: Silhouettes from the time of Goethe; from the estate of Johann Heinrich Merck ed. by Leo Grünstein. Vienna 1908. Critical to this edition: Hermann Bräuning-Oktavio : Silhouettes from the Werther period. Darmstadt 1926, pp. 55-57.
personal data
SURNAME Merck, Johann Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Darmstadt writer
DATE OF BIRTH April 11, 1741
PLACE OF BIRTH Darmstadt
DATE OF DEATH June 27, 1791
Place of death Darmstadt