Alfred Rethel

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Alfred Rethel, self-portrait, 1832
Alfred Rethel, self-portrait, around 1845

Alfred Rethel (born May 15, 1816 on Gut Diepenbenden near Aachen , † December 1, 1859 in Düsseldorf ) was a German history painter of the late Romantic period .

Life

Birthplace of Alfred Rethel, today Diepenbenden 41

Which Alfred's father, Johann (Jean) Rethel (1769-1839) from Strasbourg emigrated and in the French period as Präfekturrat in Département de la Roer in the service of Napoleon I had stood, which had good Diepenbenden below the source of the worm in the south of the city Aachen, close to the Aachen forest .

After he married Johanna Schneider (1782–1857), the daughter of a factory owner in Aachen, in 1801, he set up a chemical factory at Gut Diepenbenden, which for many years produced Berlin blue and salmiak for export to Holland. Gut Diepenbenden was destroyed in 1813 by a windpipe. The factory building was spared, but the economic damage could not be absorbed in the following years.

Alfred Rethel was born on May 15, 1816, the fourth of five children. In Burtscheid he attended a one-class simultaneous school , the teacher of which was the father of Friedrich Wilhelm Hackländer .

“[...] little Alfred Rethel was a wonderful talent even back then. At the age of eight or nine, before he [had] received any serious drawing lessons, he threw everything safely and skillfully on the paper […]. Everything came out of his pencil as if by itself and in a very short time, while we were watching, gave such a rounded, well thought-out and excellent whole that [...] older people and connoisseurs looked at these compositions with amazement. "

- Maximilian Maria Ströter after Friedrich Wilhelm Hackländer in: Rheinische Post, issue of November 28, 1959

Rethel received his first lessons at the drawing school in Aachen from Johann Baptist Joseph Bastiné , who immigrated from Leuven .

The Harkort factory at Wetter Castle , around 1834

Around 1822 the Rethels left Aachen and moved to Wetter an der Ruhr in Westphalia, where their father held a position in the Harkort factory at Wetter Castle as an accountant.

  • The victory of Charlemagne over the Saracens near Córdoba (778) , historical painting (study) by Alfred Rethel for the coronation hall of the Aachen town hall, 1849/1850: In addition to a flag of the cross and an eagle flag, Rethel left a third flag in the colors above the victorious Franconian army Black-red-gold blow.

  • The coronation of Charlemagne , executed by Joseph Kehren based on a design by Alfred Rethel, destroyed around 1860, 1944

At the age of thirteen, Alfred Rethel, like his younger brother Otto Rethel , went to the Düsseldorf Art Academy . Between 1829 and 1836 the classicist portraitist Heinrich Christoph Kolbe and Wilhelm Schadow , who introduced him to the Nazarene style , were his teachers. His real interest, however, was in romantic history and monumental painting . From his earliest childhood on, Alfred Rethel had recorded romantically inspired picture ideas. The depiction of battles, probably inspired by images of Greek art and history, played a special role. In 1834/1835 he made the illustrations for Adelheid von Stolterfoth's Rhine poems "Rheinischer Sagenkreis", a "Ciclus of romances, ballads and legends of the Rhine". The acquaintance with Carl Friedrich Lessing apparently led Rethel to history painting. A young friend and colleague of Alfred Rethel was the history painter and later academy professor Heinrich Mücke , who recorded him in his sketchbook around 1835/1836 shortly before Rethel left Düsseldorf. In 1836 he moved to Frankfurt am Main to the Städelsche Kunstinstitut under Philipp Veit , where he received his first fresco commissions . In the Imperial Hall of the Roman in Frankfurt he made frescoes of the rulers Philip of Swabia , Maximilian I , Charles V and Maximilian II as knights in gold armor with red cloaks until 1843 .

In 1839 he won the competition to paint the coronation hall in Aachen City Hall with themes from the life of Charlemagne . During these years of work, which is the main work of his life, he fell more and more mentally deranged. In 1840/1841 Rethel painted the illustrations for the “ Nibelungenlied ” and in 1842 the watercolor cycle “ Hannibal's train across the Alps ”.

Alfred Rethel (with a fan) among German artists in Rome , photo 1844/1845

In 1844 he traveled to Rome . This first trip to Italy lasted until 1845. He frequented the circles of the German Romans and in 1845 took part in the “Cervarofest” of the German Artists' Association in Rome .

In 1847 he began with the execution of the Charles frescoes. He only completed four frescoes on his own, with the rest he had to seek help because from 1853 he increasingly fell into depression . The southern windows of the town hall hall had been bricked up for Rethel's frescoes. As a result, the room lost its architectural balance. The architecture was made subservient to the painter. This reflects the conception of his time, which in many places tried to give old buildings the character of a "place of consecration" through paintings and frescoes, shaped by a patriotic ideal of piety, as it characterized German educational humanism at that time (connection of national Middle Ages and Christianity). Of the eight Charles frescoes, three were destroyed in World War II. The remaining five were translocated, i.e. carefully detached from the wall, thoroughly restored and reassembled in another location.

Rethel's frescoes stand against the background of the conception of history of the early 19th century. This documents a quote from Friedrich Theodor Vischer from 1844: “The story, the world as the arena of the Lord, the natural reality in sharp, not romantically fluctuating, fixed outlines, as a movement in which moral powers proclaim God's presence [...] that is the field of the modern artist. ”And further:“ A painter executed a great historical scene in which an all-ruling moral power celebrates its triumph triumphantly or strengthening it to the death of a hero: […] this is a sheet from the book of deity, an act from the history of God's self-movement. "

Rethel received a lot of attention with his woodcut series Auch ein Todtentanz / from 1848 (title of the first edition). He had had the idea of ​​this episode for a long time, as various Grim Reaper pictures from 1847 show, including the woodcut "Death as a Strangler", which refers to the cholera in Paris in 1831. The cycle “Also a Dance of Death” was not inspired by the Dresden May Uprising , as Rethel had already started to work on it in the winter of 1848. With the series consisting of six woodcuts, Rethel ties in with Hans Holbein's dance of death woodcuts . It is shown how death first receives swords, scales and other utensils from five female figures, then rides into a city and tries to get the citizens excited about the revolution on the market square; In the background there is a poster with the inscription "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity". In the following pictures he hands the citizens a sword with the inscription “People's Justice” and a fight scene is shown. In the last picture, death rides over the fallen with a laurel wreath (sign of the victor) on his head. The moral is that the people are now free and equal (cf. death dance). The pictures are accompanied by texts by Robert Reinick . The portrayal in Also a Dance of Death achieved a high response in the newspapers and was enthusiastically received in particular by conservative circles. The political statement came to the fore. At the urging of several pages, a cheaper reprint with a print run of 10,000 copies was subsequently submitted - an unusually high number for the time.

Rethel spent the winter of 1848 to 1849 in Dresden , his mood refreshed by the intercourse with Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld , Ernst Rietschel , Eduard Bendemann , Julius Hübner , Robert Reinick and the family von August Grahl . He also made the acquaintance of Clara and Robert Schumann in Dresden , who visited him in Aachen after 1851, where he painted the ceilings of the coronation hall.

Recovery Marie Rethel b. Grahl 1852

On October 17, 1851, Rethel married Maria Elisabeth Henrietta Philippina Grahl (1832–1895) in the Sophienkirche in Dresden, whom he had met around 1849 in the house of her father August Grahl. In memory of the engagement time, Alfred Rethel had made representations of the months in the form of children, to which his wife added small verses. In 1919 the souvenir booklet of the brewing period from 1851 was printed by the Julius Bard publishing house in Berlin. Shortly after the wedding, Marie Rethel fell ill with typhus, hovered between life and death for a long time, and the worry and strict keeping away from the young woman had an unfavorable effect on Alfred Rethel's state of mind. Rethel felt deeply grateful for her recovery, so he created the composition Recovery .

In the spring of 1852, on the advice of the doctors, Rethel went to Düsseldorf and Aachen, where the family noticed his soft mood and his uncertain language. In late summer Rethel traveled to Rome with his young wife, his second trip to Italy. The couple moved into a small apartment on Via del Tritone. Closer friends, including Woldemar and Agnes Hottenroth , observed the daily gloom with great concern. In 1853 his mental illness finally broke out, he returned to Germany and was brought to the Richarz'sche private mental hospital in Bonn-Endenich by his brother Otto Rethel and father-in-law August Grahl . The brain disease was progressing rapidly and was found to be incurable. In the last six years of his life, his brother Otto Rethel and his sister Emma (* 1802) cared for him in his mother's house in Düsseldorf- Pempelfort on Duisburger Strasse 127 until his death. His young wife and their daughter Else (1853–1933), who later married the painter Karl Rudolf Sohn , were brought to their family in Dresden in the Oppenheim'sche Palais on Bürgerwiese .

Alfred Rethel died on December 1, 1859 at the age of 43 from the effects of his brain disease. His grave is in the southern part of the old Golzheim cemetery , next to that of his mother Johanna. His descendants include the painters Alfred Sohn-Rethel and his children, Otto Sohn-Rethel , Karli Sohn-Rethel and Mira, née son, wife of Werner Heuser and their daughter Ursula Benser .

Political attitude

Contrary to what this account initially suggests, Alfred Rethel's political views were not inclined towards the reactionary party. After the suppression of the Dresden uprising , he wrote to his mother: “A few hours ago, the appalling catastrophe in this city decided in favor of the military [...] - a [...] wonderful work in honor of Germany is under the cold-blooded, calculating military force under the Saber sunk! I watched the emergence of this movement with suspicion and expected a red republic, communism with all its consequences. - But it was true general popular enthusiasm in the noblest sense for the creation of a great, noble Germany, a mission that God put in their chests and was not evoked by the radical gossip of bad newspapers and popular speakers.

Wolfgang Müller von Königswinter , a good friend and companion of Rethel, stated in a monograph published two years after his death that he had been a resolute opponent of revolutionary movements and instead took a position of moderate progress. Rethel saw the ideal of German unity pushed into the distance by radical parties . He himself was leaning towards the constitutional party.

Works (selection)

  • Portrait of the artist's mother, Johanna Christiana Schneider

  • Saint Martin , 1836

  • Nemesis , 1837

  • The reconciliation of King Otto with his brother Heinrich in Frankfurt am Main in 941 , 1840

  • Allegory of the Suppression of the Revolution of 1848

  • Death as a strangler , 1847

  • Death as a friend , 1851

  • Women's praise funeral

Hannibal's train across the Alps

  • Hannibal's procession, sheet 1: Swiss alpine shepherds look at the traces of the Carthaginian army that are visible in the thawing snow.

  • Hannibal 's procession, sheet 2: Hannibal's African army sees the snow-capped mountains as they approach Italy when crossing the Druentia.

  • Hannibal's procession , sheet 3: Dangers and hardships of the army during its march over the stormy Alpine passes, made difficult by attacks by the Helvetii.

  • Hannibal's procession , sheet 4: Fight with the elements in the ice region.

  • Hannibal's procession , sheet 5: View into a crevasse with fatal Punic warriors.

  • Hannibal's procession , sheet 6: Hannibal shows his army the realms of Italy from the height of the mountains.

  • The water-colored designs for Hannibal's train across the Alps were made between 1842 and 1844.

Also a dance of death

  • Also a dance of death first sheet

  • Also a dance of death second sheet

  • Also a dance of death Third sheet

  • Also a dance of death fourth sheet

  • Also a dance of death fifth sheet

  • Also a dance of death sixth sheet

The Luther song

  • The Luther song , first sheet: A 'strong castle is our God

  • The Luther song , second sheet: A 'strong castle is our God

  • The Luther song , third sheet: A 'strong castle is our God

Honors

  • Honorary grave at the Golzheimer Friedhof , Düsseldorf
  • Rethelstrasse in Düsseldorf was named on July 16, 1876 - Alfred Rethel temporarily lived in the former Hofgärtnerhaus on Hofgartenstrasse 1.
  • Name of the Rethelstraße in Dresden - until 1899 it was called Dorfstraße, then Hauptstraße, the Mickten part was called Bergstraße. When they were incorporated into Dresden, they were given the common name of Rethelstraße from 1904. Rethel stayed in Dresden every winter from the autumn of 1848 to 1852.
  • Since the end of the 1890s, his name has been emblazoned on the east side of the Düsseldorf Art Academy building , on the left above the main entrance between Schirmer and Schadow .

Exhibitions (selection)

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Alfred Rethel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christian Quix reported on the condition of the estate in 1829 in his historical-topographical description of the city of Aachen , p. 195: “The Diepenbend estate now consists of a residential building with farm and farm buildings, a potter's apartment and the buildings belonging to the pottery, a salmiak factory building, a Berlin blue factory building, in gardens, meadows, bends, arable land, ponds and fountains, containing about 35 acres of 150 rods. "
  2. ↑ "The Wormbach has its source above the Diepenbend estate ." In Christian Quix: Historical-topographical description of the city of Burtscheid with 61 documents. Mayer, 1832, p. 29.
  3. ^ Friedrich Wilhelm Hackländer : The novel of my life. C. Krabbe, Stuttgart 1878, p. 3.
  4. ↑ Louis Berger: The old Harkort. Leipzig 1902.
  5. ↑ Ingrid Jederko Sickle Schmidt: The profane history painting from 1826 to 1860. In: Wend von Kalnein (Ed.): The Düsseldorf School of Painting. Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1979, ISBN 3-8053-0409-9 , p. 108
  6. ↑ finding aid 212.01.04 student lists the Dusseldorf Art Academy , the portal website archive.nrw.de ( State Archive of North Rhine-Westphalia ).
  7. ^ Adelheid von Stolterfoth: Rheinischer Sagen-Kreis, illustrated by Alfred Rethel .
  8. ^ Image: Head of study Alfred Rethel by Karl Anton Heinrich Mücke ( Memento from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ^ Friedrich Noack : The Germanness in Rome since the end of the Middle Ages . Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1927, Volume 2, p. 482.
  10. ↑ Dohnaischegasse 5 u. 6 p .: Grahl, A. Preuss. Lieutenant a. D .; Rethel, painter's wife , in the address and business manual of the royal capital and residence city of Dresden, Volume 1., 1855, p. 255.
  11. ^ Alfred Rethel: Letters. Selected by Josef Ponten. Berlin 1912, p. 119.
  12. ↑ Wolfgang Müller von Königswinter: Alfred Rethel. Leaves of memory. FA Brockhaus , Leipzig, 1861.
  13. ↑ Dr. Karlheinz Kregelin: "Name book of the streets and squares in the north of the city of Dresden" (manuscript).
  14. ^ From Heldenglanz zum Totentanz, ULB, Düsseldorf .
personal data
SURNAME Rethel, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German history painter
DATE OF BIRTH May 15, 1816
PLACE OF BIRTH Gut Diepenbenden near Aachen
DATE OF DEATH December 1, 1859
Place of death Dusseldorf