Augustin and Matthäus Terwesten
The brothers Augustin (* May 4, 1649 in The Hague ; † January 21, 1711 in Berlin ) and Matthäus (* February 23, 1670 in The Hague; † June 11, 1757 in The Hague) Terwesten were Dutch baroque painters who were especially for mythological and allegorical ceiling paintings were in demand. Both, but above all Augustin Terwesten, lived and worked temporarily in Berlin. As Prussian court painters, they were involved in designing the interiors of various Berlin palaces. In the Second World War and in the following years, these paintings were almost invariably lost.
The art-historical situation
The first half of the 17th century is known as the Dutch Golden Age . The seven northern Protestant provinces had seceded from Spain in 1581 and founded a bourgeois, estates republic . Painters such as Rembrandt , Vermeer , Ruisdael and Frans Hals created genre pictures , portraits and landscapes in which the values of the young republic were expressed with references to everyday bourgeoisie . This concept was understood as the patriotic norm of a great time, deviating or later artistic expressions were hardly appreciated. Painters of the late 17th and early 18th centuries such as Augustin and Matthäus Terwesten were soon assigned to the art of decay , in which the original, Dutch values were lost in favor of an international style. This point of view influenced art history well into the 20th century and ensured that Dutch painters beyond the Golden Age were either ignored or not properly appreciated. Not least because of this assessment, only a few works by the brothers have survived in Holland.
Augustin Terwesten
In The Hague
Both parents of the Terwesten brothers were of German origin. The father, Hans Jacob Terwesten or Zurwesten, was born in Augsburg and initially worked there as a goldsmith. The mother Catharina came from Berlin. Both married in The Hague in 1648. The marriage had ten children, three sons and two daughters survived. Augustin Terwesten was the oldest son. In his father's workshop he learned the art of engraving and goldsmithing, as well as modeling in wax. Two years of apprenticeship followed with the history painter Nicolaes Wieling (1640–1678), who in 1667 became court painter to the Great Elector in Berlin. The next teacher was Willem Doudijns (1630–1697), a specialist in ceiling paintings and large history paintings. He had lived in Rome for twelve years and was influenced by the Italian masters. In 1672 Augustine went on a longer stay abroad. In Rome he trained on the ancient sculptures and the work of Raphael and became a member of the Bentvueghels , a group of Dutch artists in Rome. He returned to The Hague via Venice , France and England in 1678. During the whole trip, numerous drawings, but also wall decorations and ceiling paintings were made. In Paris he got to know the “ Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture ” (Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture), founded in 1646 , an experience that was helpful in founding the art academies in The Hague and Berlin. Augustin Terwesten's oeuvre included hundreds of drawings of anatomically difficult poses that were used as study sheets for the training of students.
After his return he painted numerous wall and ceiling pictures in The Hague and other Dutch cities in the 1680s, most of which have been lost. When they went out of fashion, they were often removed or placed elsewhere, the originator being forgotten. Several images that were once attributed to Augustine are now considered works by his brother Matthew. Besides his teacher Doudijns, Augustin Terwesten was one of the main initiators of the drawing academy in The Hague. Five members of a brotherhood of painters, the Confrerie Pictura , founded the Haagsche Teekenacademie in 1682 . Terwesten belonged to the governing body, the regents, and was director of the institution several times; one of his tasks was to give the pose to the model to be drawn. Eight years after it was founded, Terwesten left the academy to go to Berlin.
In Berlin
The first years
Augustin Terwesten became known nationwide through his pictures and as a co-founder of the Hague Academy. In 1690 he received a call to Berlin and settled there with his mother and sisters; his father died in 1680. On April 12, 1692 he was formally appointed court painter to Elector Friedrich III. , who later became King Friedrich I, was employed in Prussia. In doing so, he undertook, as usual, "... in particular for the elector alone and no one else, unless with special permissions (= special permission) [...] to produce something" . The renovation of the Berlin City Palace was not yet finished; the construction of the Charlottenburg Palace (then still Lietzenburg) did not begin until 1695 - the planned program of representative wall and ceiling paintings could not yet be tackled. The elector had his court painter instructed to teach interested young artists how to paint and draw; for this he received board and teaching fees. Augustin Terwesten played a key role in founding the Berlin Academy of the Arts in 1696. According to the will of the sovereign, it should become a "high art school or art university, like the well-ordered academies in Rome and Paris" . In six pen drawings Augustin sketched his ideas for the rooms of the academy, for their equipment and the various stages of training around 1694. After approval by the elector, these proposals were implemented. Terwesten was one of the teachers at the academy, which he later led for five one-year terms.
The ceiling pictures
Oranienburg Castle
The first verifiable and at the same time the only ceiling painting by Augustin Terwestens preserved in Berlin is the "Allegory of the Introduction of Porcelain in Europe" in the former porcelain cabinet of Oranienburg Castle , dated 1697. The Great Elector Friedrich Wilhelm and his wife already had an extensive collection of Chinese and Japanese porcelain and put on display in a special room, the porcelain chamber. Her son, Elector Friedrich III., Had a splendid new cabinet set up in an extension to the palace. The ceiling was richly decorated with gilded stucco ornaments, embedded in the round painting by Augustin Terwesten, two semicircular formats, painted in oil on canvas. This arrangement corresponded to the tradition of the 17th century, when ceiling paintings such as panel paintings were incorporated into the overall decorative design of the ceilings. After 1700 it became common for a ceiling painting as a "baroque sky" to span the entire room; Augustin Terwesten also worked in the same way in the Berlin City Palace.
Schloss Charlottenburg
The middle wing of Lietzenburg Castle was built between 1695 and 1699 as the summer residence of Electress Sophie Charlotte - after her death, the castle was named after her. The Terwesten brothers furnished the new building with ceiling paintings in four living rooms and a staircase. Her pictures were the first to be taken in the castle. Thematically, the painters based themselves on motifs from ancient mythology - Cupid and Psyche , Mercury and Psyche, Apollo and Venus , Jupiter and Apollo, Apollo and the Muses . The scheme of the ceilings, with the exception of the stairwell, was similar: a colored central field fitted with stucco ornamentation, surrounded by four or eight separate picture fields in grisaille painting . It is guaranteed that the brothers worked together in Charlottenburg; their share in individual images cannot be clearly determined. It is also certain that Augustin Terwesten did most of the work. There is no conclusive evidence for the thesis, which is sometimes expressed, that Augustine painted the central pictures and that his younger brother and former pupil Matthew painted the more subordinate fields on the side. During the Second World War, between 1943 and 1945, large parts of the castle's buildings were also destroyed, along with the pictures of the Terwesten brothers.
Berlin City Palace
The architect and sculptor Andreas Schlüter directed the conversion of the Berlin City Palace into a baroque royal palace around 1700. As early as 1699, at the stage of the shell construction, he laid down both the content and the main features of the drafts for the ceiling paintings; the king accepted the program. The intended painters, all members of the art academy, objected to the exact specifications, but could not prevail. Augustin Terwesten was one of the most important ceiling painters in the castle; his brother Matthäus was apparently not involved. In contrast to the Lietzenburg / Charlottenburg summer palace, the allegories here in the Hohenzollern residence had not only mythological but also political content, for example in Terwestens “glorification of the Prussian coat of arms” and similar depictions in the king's representative rooms. His ceiling paintings in a number of other rooms were rather apolitical. The last picture signed by Augustin Terwesten and dated 1704 was in a room that around two hundred years later served Kaiser Wilhelm II as a study. Augustine's ceiling paintings in the Berlin City Palace no longer exist. The castle was bombed and burned out during World War II. The stable and partly well-preserved ruins were blown up and removed in 1950 by order of the GDR authorities .
Augustin Terwesten never married. He died on January 21, 1711 in Berlin; his mother received a death benefit from the state treasury.
Matthäus Terwesten
Ezaias, the middle son of the family, also worked temporarily in the father's workshop, later he settled in Rome as a flower and fruit painter. The youngest son, Matthäus Terwesten, was born on February 23, 1670 in The Hague, so he was 21 years younger than his brother Augustin, with whom he initially apprenticed. When Augustin moved to Berlin in 1690, Matthäus completed several of his unfinished works, "to the great pleasure of the owners" . He quickly received his own commissions, but decided to travel to Rome in 1695 to further his artistic training there. During a stopover with his family members in Berlin, he drew at the art academy and received a certificate for it. In spring 1696 he traveled to Rome via Augsburg - where he looked in vain for relatives of his father -, Florence and Siena . In 1697 an extensive album with drawings based on ancient models was created there. A stay in Berlin is documented for 1698/99 - Matthäus returned there because of an illness of his mother. In June 1699 he was back in The Hague, receiving lucrative commissions from important public figures. After another brief stay in Berlin in April 1710, where he was appointed court painter and professor at the Academy, he returned to marry in The Hague that same year. With his wife Theodora he had five children, two of them Augustin the Elder. J. and Pieter also became painters.
A special aspect was the collaboration between Matthäus Terwesten and local flower painters. This resulted in ceiling paintings, but often also small works such as supraport or fireplace pictures. If one of the flower painters was not commissioned, Terwesten occasionally painted a simple background motif to please him - a vase with drapery or playing putti - the specialist added the flowers and had the finished picture offered for sale. Such a work was signed, if at all, by the flower painter. Matthäus Terwesten was active in the drawing academy in The Hague throughout his professional life. He worked well into old age. In 1751, at the age of 81, he was commissioned to design a courtroom and carried it out. After two strokes, he died on June 11, 1757 in The Hague.
The works of the Terwesten brothers did not differ fundamentally in the choice of motifs and the general implementation. But there were still differences. Matthew's pictures were less dramatic, more decorative in character. Its color was also a bit lighter. In using the spatial perspective he showed some weaknesses - the relationships between the figures in the foreground and background were not always consistent; on this point he was inferior to his brother Augustine.
Aktsaal der Kunstakademie Berlin, copper engraving after A. Terwesten.
A. Terwesten, “Glorification of the Prussian Coat of Arms” in the Berlin City Palace (destroyed). Detail.
A. Terwesten, ceiling painting in Charlottenburg Palace (destroyed).
M. Terwesten, putti in a flower picture (lost).
literature
- Joseph Eduard Wessely : Terwesten, Augustin . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 37, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1894, p. 579.
- Gods and heroes for Berlin. Two Dutch artists at the court of Frederick I and Sophie Charlottes . Exhibition catalog. Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation, Berlin 1995.
- Berlin painter around 1700 and the establishment of the Academy of Arts and Mechanical Sciences . Exhibition catalog. Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin 1979, p. 80 ff.
