Balthasar Denner

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Balthasar Denner
Balthasar Denner sitting at the table with his family
Three children of Councilor Barthold Hinrich Brockes (portrait)
Portrait of Friedrich Hoffmann
Portrait of an old woman
Balthasar Denner, sculpture at the Kunsthalle Hamburg

Balthasar Denner (born November 15, 1685 in Altona , † April 14, 1749 in Rostock ) was a German painter .

Origin and youth

Balthasar Denner grew up in Altona, about two kilometers west of Hamburg. Altona was then (1710) with around 12,000 inhabitants the second largest city after Copenhagen within the entire Danish state and was particularly characterized by the religious freedom granted there . His father Jakob Denner (1659–1746) was a well-known preacher of the Altona Mennonites , a blue dyer by trade. His mother was Catharina Wiebe (1663–1743). Balthasar was the oldest of seven siblings and the only son.

When Balthasar was eight years old, he had an accident that caused him to limp all his life. He passed the time of tedious healing by drawing. He showed himself unusually adept at copying images with great accuracy.

At the age of eleven he was tutored by the Dutch painter Franz van Amama. When his father worked as a Mennonite pastor in Gdansk for some time , Balthasar received lessons in oil painting there .

In 1701 the family moved back to Altona. Balthasar, meanwhile 16, joined an uncle's company in Hamburg to learn the trade of a businessman. He worked there for the next six years. In his spare time he continued to practice painting.

In 1707, at the age of 22, Balthasar was accepted into the Prussian Academy of the Arts , which had been founded a few years earlier, in 1696, by the future King Friedrich I (Prussia) . Under his rule, many artists and scientists stayed in Berlin and the school was considered one of the best in Europe.

Career as a portrait painter

As early as 1709, at the age of 24, Balthasar Denner received his first important commission: he painted the portraits of Christian August (uncle and guardian of Karl Friedrich , Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf ) and his sister Marie Elisabeth , who later became the abbess of Quedlinburg . The client was so impressed by the result that he invited Denner to Gottorf Castle in Schleswig to paint more portraits there. Here Denner realized a large group portrait (178 × 138 cm) in 1712, which shows 21 people from the Duke's court. It is now in Rastede Castle . This large picture established Balthasar Denner's reputation as a portrait painter, which spread very quickly.

As a result, until the end of his life he received more than enough commissions to paint the greats of his time at the courts of Europe. In addition to dukes and their families, these included the Danish kings Frederick IV (Denmark and Norway) and Christian VI. , King August II (Poland) , Tsar Peter III. (Russia) and King Adolf Friedrich (Sweden) .

Apparently Denner sometimes limited himself to bringing his actual specialty, the portrait, into one picture and having the rest, for example the figure, clothes, background done by another painter, and occasionally by one of his talented children. The portrait of Three Children by Councilor Barthold Hinrich Brockes from 1724 bears an inscription on the reverse that lists those involved: Denner painted the heads of the children in Hamburg, Jacob van Schuppen later the bodies and robes in Vienna, the background is by Franz de Paula Ferg (1689–1740), the flowers in the children's hands were painted by Franz Werner Tamm (1658–1724).

Family life and travel

In 1712, at the age of 27, Denner was already a made man and was able to get married. With his wife, Esther Winter, he had six children, five girls and a boy. From 1712 until his death in 1749, Denner traveled to his clients in Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, Hamburg and Hanover, Dresden, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and London. At times he was in a different place every year, sometimes he made several trips a year. He took the whole family with him. The children were musically gifted and entertained the great personalities, who had to sit still for their portrait, with musical performances. The daughter Catharina was particularly gifted, trained in music and painting, but she died in 1744. Denner's only longer stays were in London from 1721 to 1728 and in Amsterdam from 1736 to 1739.

The fact that Denner met many English people in Hanover and was invited to London from there is a reminder of the close connection between the two countries: King George I (Great Britain) came from Hanover and stayed as British King Elector of Hanover and Duke of Braunschweig. Luneburg.

effect

The list of his customers shows that Denner was extraordinarily sought after and valued during his lifetime. The noble and rich from all over Northern Europe wanted to be painted by him.

A portrait also served as documentation, gained prestige, helped mediate marriages or manifest political claims. From the picture that Denner 1740 of the twelve-year-old Peter III. (Russia) painted in Kiel, he had to make ten copies. One of these was sent to the court of Petersburg as a discreet reminder of the claim to the throne of the tsar.

The public in Rotterdam and London met with great enthusiasm for the portrait of an old woman . Contemporary critics equated it with the Mona Lisa . Above all, the astonishing accuracy in detail with which every skin fold, every hair was captured was praised. It is said that his portraits can be studied with a magnifying glass.

Since the late 18th century, Balthasar Denner's portraits have become a negative example in art theory of merely meticulously depicting painting, which is therefore unspiritual and inartistic. Corresponding statements are made by Johann Joachim Winckelmann , Johann Georg Sulzer , August Wilhelm Schlegel and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel . The Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie of 1877 criticized: “Anyone who is still looking for an ideal moment in the concept of a true work of art and is not satisfied with the slavish copy of nature will not be pleasantly touched by such images. There is absolutely no ghost in these heads, they don't talk, and the smooth, soft color enhances the impression of the wax figure. "

Arno Schmidt said in a radio interview with Martin Walser from 1952 that the writer's task was to reproduce the thought process of the people of his time with “Balthasar Dennerscher precision”.

A street is named after him in the Hamburg district of Barmbek-Nord .

literature

Web links

Commons : Balthasar Denner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ according to NDB
  2. ↑ The Hamburgischer Künstlerlexikon (1854), (p. 51) gives information about the names: Catharina (later wife of Dominicus van der Smissen ), Esther and Jacob .
  3. ^ Daniel Spanke: Portrait - Icon - Art . Munich 2004. (There is also a detailed chapter on Balthasar Denner).
personal data
SURNAME Denner, Balthasar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH November 15, 1685
PLACE OF BIRTH Altona
DATE OF DEATH April 14, 1749
Place of death Rostock