Carl Friedrich Lessing

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Carl Friedrich Lessing, from a group picture by Julius Huebner (1839)

Carl Friedrich Lessing (born February 15, 1808 in Breslau ; † June 5, 1880 in Karlsruhe ) was a romantic painter of the 19th century. He is one of the most important history and landscape painters of the Düsseldorf School .

Life

childhood

His father Carl Friedrich Lessing the Elder (1778–1848) was a judicial officer in Breslau, from 1809 Chancellor of the Court of the Free State of Polish Wartenberg and nephew of the writer Gotthold Ephraim Lessing . His mother Clementine, née Schwarz (1783-1821), was the daughter of the government chancellor of Prince Hatzfeldt in Trachenberg . His brother Christian Friedrich (1809–1862) became a doctor and botanist. His sister Franziska Maria (1818–1901), called Fanny, was married to the painter Emil Ebers . The future painter spent his childhood in the idyllic town of Polish-Wartenberg (from 1888: Groß-Wartenberg ) and discovered his love for nature while roaming through the beautiful area with its huge forests.

Studies

After studying for two years at the Catholic grammar school in Breslau, where his talent for drawing was discovered, Lessing went to Berlin at the age of 14 and studied construction at the Bauakademie directed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel . In 1823 he decided to become a painter without his father's consent. His trip to Rügen , which stimulated his imagination, played a decisive role . He studied for three years at the Art Academy in Berlin, where he was instructed by the landscape painters Samuel Rösel and Heinrich Dähling , and in 1826 went to the Art Academy in Düsseldorf with his friend Wilhelm von Schadow . There he became a co-founder of the Düsseldorf School of Painting . His first success was achieved in 1825 with the painting of the churchyard with corpse stones and ruins in the snow , which was shown at the Berlin art exhibition that year, caused a sensation and achieved a high price. Success reconciled the father with the son's painting career.

Years of success

The mourning royal couple , 1828–1830
The sun kissing the earth goodbye , 1830s
Romantic landscape with monastery complex , 1834
The Hussite Sermon , 1836

In the first period of his activity Lessing painted melancholy landscapes in the footsteps of Caspar David Friedrich : The motifs were crumbling castles, forgotten churchyards, jagged rocky areas, which he populated with figures of monks, knights, robbers, gypsies, etc. Other motifs came from poetry ( Lenore , 1832, bought by King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. ) Or from the world of legends ( The mourning royal couple , 1828–1830, today in the Hermitage .) This style found many imitators and almost degenerated into them Vulgarity off. Around this time Schadow introduced him to history painting and got him an order for wall paintings from Count von Spee , who wanted to decorate the garden hall of his castle near Düsseldorf with a cycle of frescoes about the life of Friedrich Barbarossa . Lessing created The Battle of Iconium here , but soon discovered that the wall painting did not appeal to him and left the rest of the work to Hermann Plüddemann , another artist from the Düsseldorf school.

Wilhelm Füssli characterized him in 1843 as “a man whom public opinion has placed at the forefront of Düsseldorf artists for years. (...) Now he is one of the most respected German painters, yes, he may have a larger audience than Cornelius . Although he cannot be compared with the latter, we also regard him in a certain way as a reformer of German art. ”In 1846 Lessing received the offer to become director of the Städelsche Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt am Main . He declined this offer. In the summer of 1858, however, he accepted the appointment as director of the Grand Ducal Badische Gemäldegalerie in Karlsruhe .

From 1836 to 1867 Lessing only painted historical scenes. The most famous paintings from this period are:

  • The Hussite Sermon , 1836 (Berlin, Alte Nationalgalerie);
  • Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa (for the Roman in Frankfurt am Main ), 1839;
  • Jan Hus before the Council of Constance , 1842 (Frankfurt am Main, Städelsche Kunstsammlung). This picture caused a lot of controversy and newspaper discussion, as it was believed to be an insult to the Catholic religion. For this purpose Wilhelm Camphausen Lessingillustratedthe "Martyrdom of Jan Hus", which appeared in the dark side of the Düsseldorf painters, along with shortened views of their last achievements in 1845. Another version of the picture from 1854 has been donated to the Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorfsince 2012.
  • The Siege , 1848, scene from the Thirty Years War with a burned church
  • Johann Hus in front of the stake , 1850, one of his largest and most important works, which again caused religious disputes, from 1850 as the main work of the Düsseldorf School of Painting in the Düsseldorf Gallery , New York City, later in the National Gallery Berlin , since 2012 in the Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf
  • Luther , who burns the bull of excommunication , 1853, again the subject of religious discussions;
  • The capture of Pope Paschalis , 1858, with life-size figures. This picture ended his activity in Düsseldorf.

In the summer of this year Lessing went to the art gallery in Karlsruhe as director. There he began to paint landscapes again, but also continued his series of great historical paintings, which he finally ended in 1867 with the painting The Disputation of Luther with Eck at the Pleißenburg in Leipzig .

Last years of life

In 1867 Lessing was appointed to return to Düsseldorf as director of the academy, but refused and stayed in Karlsruhe until the end of his life. Over the years he has received many honors: the Berlin Academy made him a member as early as 1832, in his fortieth year he received the title of professor from King Friedrich Wilhelm IV and, as one of the first artists , was later given the Pour le Mérite order of peace he also received other German and foreign orders and medals and became an honorary member of numerous German and foreign academies and artists' associations. In the last years of his life he was chairman of two artists' associations in Düsseldorf ( Malkasten ) and Karlsruhe.

Carl Friedrich Lessing had been married to Ida Heuser (1817–1880), daughter of the Protestant merchant Heinrich Daniel Theodor Heuser (1767–1848) from Gummersbach near Cologne, who died a few months before him , since August 1841 . Ida Heuser had at least five siblings, including the painters Louise Desert , Adeline Jaeger and Alwine Schroedter . The couple had several children, including the sculptor Otto Lessing (Düsseldorf 1846–1912 Berlin), the painters Heinrich Lessing (1856–1930) and Konrad Lessing (1852–1916) as well as the daughter Bertha Lessing (1844–1914 in Berlin) who married the royal Saxon actor Karl Koberstein - the parents of the painter Hans Koberstein (died 1945 in Berlin). In the last few years Lessing could no longer work after several strokes , one last stroke brought his life to a painless end. The grave site in Karlsruhe's main cemetery, decorated with a grave memorial based on a design by Otto Lessing, was leveled around 1956.

Work and effect

Lessing as a dominant figure in the Düsseldorf School presented (with paper) in the foreground on the right half of the group portraits The pictures show the Dusseldorf artist in the gallery hall of Friedrich Boser , 1844

As mentioned above, Lessing's oeuvre is divided into two groups: historical painting, disparagingly referred to by some critics as trend painting , and landscape painting. The huge historical paintings may not show any grandeur, as with Jacques-Louis David , but are characterized by good artistic craftsmanship, individualization of the figures shown and historical fidelity. He worked constantly to improve it and left a large number of portfolios with studies of nature and historical sketches in which he indulged. In late Romantic painting, as successor to Caspar David Friedrich, he set the tone among his contemporaries and exerted a very extensive influence on the development of the Düsseldorf School of Painting . He stands on the threshold between idealism and realism : his romantic and poetic conception was combined with a thorough study of nature. None of the contemporaries portrayed the German forest and the wild rocky areas of the Harz and Eifel so poetically and at the same time true to nature. Lessing also became known to and loved by the general public through countless reproductions in the magazines of the early Wilhelmine era - over land and sea , gazebo , etc.

Today (2005) almost all historical paintings are in state collections. Lessing's landscape paintings nowadays fetch prices between 2000 and 10,000 euros.

Illustrations (selection)

Digital copies of the University and State Library Düsseldorf :

literature

  • Friedrich von Weech : Carl Friedrich Lessing. In: Badische Biographien , Third Part. G. Braun, Karlsruhe 1881, pp. 76-81 ( digitized version ).
  • Moritz Blanckarts :  Lessing, Carl Friedrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 18, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1883, pp. 450-453.
  • Lessing, Karl Friedrich . In: Friedrich von Boetticher : painter works of the nineteenth century. Contribution to art history , Volume I, Dresden 1895, p. 844 ff.
  • Arend Buchholtz (adaptation): The story of the Lessing family. Berlin 1909, Vol. II
  • Ingrid Jenderko-Sichelschmidt: The history pictures Carl Friedrich Lessing. Appendix: Catalog of the paintings, inaugural dissertation to obtain the doctoral degree of the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Cologne, Cologne 1973.
  • Vera Leuschner: Carl Friedrich Lessing (1808–1880). The hand drawings. 2 volumes. Cologne / Vienna 1982. [Dissertations on art history; 14]
  • Vera Leuschner:  Lessing, Carl Friedrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-428-00195-8 , p. 348 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Jörg Kuhn: Otto Lessing 1846–1912, sculptor, craftsman, painter. Life and work of an artist of late historicism with special consideration of his work as a building sculptor. Phil. Diss. Freie Universität Berlin 1994 (reading copy in the art library of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin PK, Kulturforum)
  • Martina Sitt (Ed.): Carl Friedrich Lessing. Romantic and rebel. Donat, Bremen 2000, ISBN 3-934836-04-6

Web links

Commons : Carl Friedrich Lessing  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: The seventieth birthday of a master of German art  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilhelm Füssli : The most important cities on the Middle and Lower Rhine in the German area, with reference to old and new works of architecture, sculpture and painting . Zurich and Winterthur 1843, p. 588 f.
  2. ↑ New acquisitions: Carl Friedrich Lessing (1808-1880), Johann Hus in the preliminary interrogation in Konstanz 1414/15 (Hus before the Council of Constance) , 1845, 2012 donation Johanna Sturm, oil on canvas, 94 x 135.9 cm, monogr. u. dat. "CFL 1845", inv. no. M 2012-1 , from Stiftung Museum Kunstpalast, accessed on February 20, 2018.
  3. ↑ Carl Friedrich Lessing (1808-1880), Johann Hus in front of the stake , 1850, 2012 donation Johanna Sturm, oil on canvas, 94 x 135.9 cm, monogr. u. dat. "CFL 1850", inv. no. M 2012-2 , from Stiftung Museum Kunstpalast, accessed on February 20, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Lessing, Carl Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION romantic painter
DATE OF BIRTH February 15, 1808
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH June 5, 1880
Place of death Karlsruhe