Alexander Bruckmann

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Ferdinand Alexander Bruckmann (born February 21, 1806 in Ellwangen , † February 9, 1852 in Stuttgart ) was a German history and portrait painter .

Life

Justinus Kerner painted by Alexander Bruckmann (1844)

Bruckmann came from a family of merchants and silversmiths who had lived in Heilbronn since 1725 . His father Johann August (von) Bruckmann (1776–1835) was a master builder , while his uncle Peter Bruckmann (1778–1850) founded the Bruckmann silverware factory in Heilbronn .

Alexander Bruckmann was born in Ellwangen, where his father was a district building officer . His younger brother August Eduard Bruckmann (1810–1884) later became an architect like his father , while Alexander Bruckmann showed artistic talent. Since the family was now living in Heilbronn again, his father gave him to the Bruckmannsche Silberwarenfabrik in 1820, where he learned the art of engraving and medal making under the guidance of his uncle and the sculptor Conrad Weitbrecht who was then employed there .

Due to an eye problem, Bruckmann had to give up this activity and instead took up painting . In 1827 he came to Stuttgart to Eberhard von Wächter to train as a painter, and from 1827 to 1829 studied at the Munich Art Academy, mainly under the direction of Heinrich Hess . A picture showing Odysseus with the sirens , which he exhibited at the Munich art exhibition in 1829, was bought by King Wilhelm I of Württemberg .

From the autumn of 1829 to 1832 he lived in Rome , from where he sent the large picture of Barbarossa's corpse is pulled from the Kalykadnos home for the state scholarship granted to him . He then settled in Heilbronn for a short time, but went back to Munich in 1833 , where he painted the bedchamber of King Ludwig I with 14 pictures based on motifs from the poems of Theocritus in the residence, partly based on designs by Heinrich Hess and partly based on his own designs . He decorated Queen Therese's bedroom with scenes of Helena's wedding with Menelaus .

In 1834 he met the philosopher and politician Friedrich Rohmer (1814-1856) in Munich , whose loyal follower and confidante he became and whom he also supported financially. The family bond became friendship after Bruckmann married Rohmer's sister Mathilde in 1843. From then on, Bruckmann's artistic development took a back seat, as his friendship with Rohmer was more important to him.

Johann August von Bruckmann died in Ulm in 1835 , and Alexander Bruckmann set out to pay his last respects to his father. On the way to Ulm he was thrown out of the car in an accident, hit the back of his head on a pile of stones and suffered a severe concussion , from which he initially recovered, but which left him with severe headaches for the rest of his life Caused pain and depression.

The women of Weinsberg (1836)

Bruckmann returned to Munich. His talent was recognized; Based on his designs, Friedrich Preller executed a frieze in the Härtelschen house in Leipzig in 1836 in the style of Greek vase painting with depictions from the Odyssey . Also the pictures regarded as his best easel pictures such as Die Weiber von Weinsberg (1836, based on the Treu-Weiber incident ), The Girl from the Foreign (1838, based on Schiller ) and Romeo and Juliet (1840, engraved by Anton Duttenhofer and from Württembergisches Art Association distributed as a gift) come from this time.

From 1840 onwards, Bruckmann devoted himself almost exclusively to portrait painting, mostly in Stuttgart, temporarily also in Ulm, Augsburg , Zurich and elsewhere. During this time he created only a few larger works, including the painting Thusnelda in Captivity (1851) and two large frescoes (1846) in the ballroom of the Stuttgart Museum of Fine Arts (now the Alte Staatsgalerie), The Birth of Aphrodite and Der h. Lucas, painting the Madonna ; there are also three smaller surports with allegories of the three fine arts architecture , sculpture and painting .

Bruckmann's health problems caused by his accident in 1835 bothered him at work and got worse over time, so that he eventually feared blindness and madness. To avoid this fate, he committed suicide on February 9, 1852.

reception

August Wintterlin writes about Bruckmann that he was once counted among the most promising artistic talents in Württemberg, but that his mature age did not keep what his youth had promised. In the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie in 1876 he judged: “B. composed with much understanding and diligence; his figures always delight with a noble and warm pathos; its coloring, at first very strong and clear, later became cloudy and sometimes dry; among his portraits there are quite excellent achievements alongside surprisingly weaker ones. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographical data from the Heilbronn city archive, contemporary history collection, signature ZS-11023, entry on Johann August Bruckmann in the HEUSS database
  2. Life data after entry of August Eduard Bruckmann in the personal database of the Baden-Württemberg State Bibliography
  3. August Wintterlin: Württemberg artists in life pictures , 1895 (see literature), p. 382

literature

Web links

Commons : Alexander Bruckmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files