Carl Plückebaum

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Carl Maria Plückebaum (born February 17, 1880 in Düsseldorf ; † January 27, 1952 there ) was a German genre painter and etcher . Along with Carl Schmitz-Pleis (1877–1943) and Walter Ophey (1882–1930), he is one of the most important representatives of Düsseldorf Neo-Impressionism .

Life

education

Carl Plückebaum came from a Rhenish family with many children . The fourteen-year-old, who was handicapped from birth and remained remarkably small, entered the workshop of a Düsseldorf church restorer as an apprentice to learn the profession of gilding . During his seven years as a church restorer, he took private lessons from a painter, which he had to interrupt several times due to financial difficulties.

In a competition held by the Düsseldorf Kunstgewerbemuseum in 1901, the previously unknown painter was awarded first prize for a series of six advertising pictures. Plückebaum used the prize money of 1,000 marks he won for a five-year course at the Düsseldorf Art Academy . During this time he was a student of Eduard von Gebhardt and Johann Peter Theodor Janssen .

In the course of his training, Plückebaum came more and more into conflict with the rigid dogmas of the academy. He tried to free himself from the resulting artistic-existential crisis in May 1906 by participating in a group exhibition in the Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf , which, according to the statutes of the academy, resulted in his dismissal.

The overwhelming success with the public provided the young painter with the hoped-for recognition of his artistic work as well as the financial means for a study trip to Italy .

The impressions he received in Florence and Fiesole so troubled him that he retired to the monastery of the Franciscans of Fiesole. During his stay in the monastery, Plückebaum lived with the friars and fathers, drew the landscapes of the surroundings, made portrait sketches and decorated the monastery chapel of San Francesco with frescoes .

It was during this time that the first drafts of his painting Königskinder , which was entirely influenced by Art Nouveau , were made , which the Kunstverein for the Rhineland and Westphalia bought in 1908 and sent to its members in print as an annual gift.

Second trip to Italy and the time in Munich

After Plückebaum had given up the idea of ​​permanently joining the monastery community, he returned to the Rhine for three years , where he mainly devoted himself to the study of children's and animal drawings.

In 1910 he and his painter friends Walter Ophey and Carl Schmitz-Pleis set off on his second trip to Italy, which took him via Rome to Naples and the nearby towns of Sorrento and Positano . During this trip, paintings such as Adoration of the Shepherds and From Southern Italy were created , which in Plückebaum's work reflect a phase of experimentation in which the color composition was the focus of his artistic interest.

After his return he found his way back to his artistic style while studying the old masters in the Munich Pinakothek . The first child portraits such as Marie Luise and Röschen were created . During this time he developed that subtle sense of humor in the portrayal of his characters that would henceforth be characteristic of many of his works.

In Schwabing's artistic circles, Plückebaum met his future wife, the painter and etcher Meta Weber (1876–1945), who had received private lessons from Hermann Pohle in Düsseldorf and of whom he later jokingly claimed that he had married his greatest competitor.

In the succession of Spitzweg and Richter

Carl Plückebaum perfected his own style over the years, unaffected by the leading art movements of the time. His pictures reveal a longing for harmony and clarity that lives deep within him, and with their always bright colors and delicate halftones - such as the widely used apricot - appear strangely timeless. Because of the high spirits of his motifs, art history saw him succeeding Carl Spitzweg or - because of the romantic intimacy of his pictures - close to Adrian Ludwig Richter .

Together with his wife, he was one of the well-known greats of the Düsseldorf art scene. Both were committed members of the Malkasten artists' association until their deaths . Plückebaum once commented on the work of the artist couple in the following words: Because life is often so rough, when we make art we want to build the world up as if it were heaven itself.

Carl Plückebaum died in Düsseldorf in 1952 and was buried in the Nordfriedhof .

criticism

“Plückebaum is not one of the big ones, he is one of the fine ones. His development goes in depth, not in breadth, and harmony is everything to him. (…) It is true that battles were not fought here and all 'isms' meet at Plückebaum, so to speak, on neutral ground, untitled and without weapons. But he has the loneliness of tough and equally reflective work. The doors to the noisy world close silently; it is like a silent Christmas around him. (…) The superficial and external rush past it carelessly, even with disdain and sniffing. But the silent ones stop there all the happier. A world of carefree childhood has been built up here, which seems unprecedented in its delightful truthfulness and which unfortunately most people of our time only know God from hearsay. But wherever Plückebaum's children's portraits may hang and his little pictures tell great, enchanted fairy tales down from the walls, generations after us will still be amazed and recognize: here was someone who held his heart so believing even in the time after the great war could that he still believed in miracles and fairy tale things where others jumped around the money bag alone and knew nothing of the deep, beautiful meaning of life when the naked day gave them [...] "

- Heinrich Zerkaulen : Velhagen and Klasings monthly books

Works (selection)

painting

  • Guardian in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle
  • Royal children
  • From southern Italy
  • Adoration of the Shepherds
  • On Christmas Eve
  • Marie Luise , child portrait
  • Roses , child portrait
  • On road
  • Enthusiasm and reality
  • Land of milk and honey
  • Musicians returning home in the mountains
  • Satisfied with breastfeeding - a Dutchman from Katwyk

Etchings

  • Young monk from Fiesole
  • Fiesole monastery garden
  • Where is the way to Bethlehem?

literature

  • Plückebaum, Carl . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 27 : Piermaria – Ramsdell . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1933, p. 160 .
  • Heinrich Zerkaulen : Carl Plückebaum. In: Velhagen & Klasings monthly books. 35th year, issue 4, Bielefeld 1920, pp. 361–372.
  • Sabine Schroyen (arrangement): Image sources on the history of the artists' association Malkasten in Düsseldorf. Artists and their works in the collections. Düsseldorf 2001 [Rhineland / Archive and Museum Office, Archivhefte, 34].
  • Julia Lohmann (Red.): One hundred and fifty years of the artists' association Malkasten. 1848-1998. Düsseldorf 1998.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Source: obituary, archive of the artists' association Malkasten
  2. ^ Magdalena M. Moeller : Der Sonderbund. His prerequisites and beginnings in Düsseldorf. Cologne, Bonn 1984, p. 197.
  3. ↑ Together with the painters Josef Kohlschein and Walter Ophey.
  4. ↑ Printed in Velhagen and Klasings Almanach, 1908.
  5. ^ Heinrich Zerkaulen: Carl Plückebaum. In: Velhagen & Klasings monthly books. 35th volume, issue 4, December 1920, p. 368.
  6. ^ Heinrich Zerkaulen: Carl Plückebaum. In: Velhagen & Klasings monthly books. 35th volume, issue 4, December 1920, p. 364.
  7. ↑ The grave in which his wife, who died on August 9, 1945, was buried was in field 56, nos. 317–319. According to the cemetery chancellery, the grave site was closed and cleared in 2010.
  8. ^ Heinrich Zerkaulen: Carl Plückebaum. In: Velhagen & Klasings monthly books. 35th volume, issue 4, December 1920, p. 361 ff.
personal data
SURNAME Plückebaum, Carl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Plückebaum, Carl Maria (full name); Plückebaum, Karl (different spelling)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and etcher
DATE OF BIRTH February 17, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Dusseldorf
DATE OF DEATH January 27, 1952
Place of death Dusseldorf