Carl von Steuben
Carl von Steuben (born April 18, 1788 in Bauerbach , Thuringia , † November 21, 1856 in Paris ) was a French history and portrait painter and lithographer of German origin. He can be assigned to the Romantics .
Life
Von Steuben was born as the son of the ducal- Württemberg officer Carl Hans Ernst von Steuben , which seemed to mark his career path from home. At the age of twelve he moved with his father, who was a captain in Russian services, to Saint Petersburg , where he took drawing lessons as a visiting student at the Art Academy.
Thanks to his father's social contacts with the court of the Tsars, in the summer of 1802 he accompanied the young Maria Pawlowna (1786-1859), Grand Duchess of Russia and granddaughter of Duke Friedrich Eugen von Württemberg , to the Thuringian cultural city of Weimar , where the Tsar's daughter, Duke Carl Friedrich, two years later von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach (1783-1853) married. Steuben, then fourteen years old, became her personal page at the ducal court, a position that promised prospects for a later career in the military or in administration.
The fact that von Steuben left the path marked out for him can be attributed to the connection with the family of his godmother Henriette von Wolhaben (1723–1788), who died at an early age, and her husband, Ernst Ludwig Freiherr von Wolhaben (1723–1774), a regimental comrade of Carl von Steuben's father in Württemberg service had been. Henriette's eldest son Wilhelm was related by marriage to Caroline von Lengefeld with the poet Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805), to whom Henriette von Woliehen had granted asylum several times in earlier times on her estate Bauerbach near Weimar. During his time in Weimar, a frequent guest in Bauerbach, von Steuben finally made the acquaintance of Schiller through Charlotte von Wolhaben, daughter of Henriette, who died early. The poet soon recognized his artistic talent and convinced him of his political ideal - freedom of self-determination regardless of courtly constraints.
In 1803, von Steuben followed his inner voice and traveled to Paris with a letter of recommendation from Schiller to his friend, painter François Gérard . Gérard accepted the almost destitute budding artist as a student and also privately.
After two years of preparation, von Steuben was accepted into the renowned École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris in February 1805 , where he was taught by well-known teachers, including Jacques-Louis David , Pierre Paul Prud'hon and Robert Lefebvre .
In Gérard's studio, the young art student first met the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt , whom he portrayed in 1812 for the family castle in Tegel on behalf of his brother, the Berlin university founder Wilhelm von Humboldt .
The efforts of Steubens to establish himself artistically and economically were sustainably supported by Alexander von Humboldt. In long letters, Humboldt repeatedly asked for support for von Steuben and solicited artistic commissions, including from the Prussian Minister of State Karl Freiherr vom Stein and Duchess Helene von Orleans. He reported about his own portrait painting and the painter who created it in a letter to his sister-in-law Caroline on August 19, 1813:
“My dear, dearly beloved sister! [...] I am infinitely dear that you are satisfied with the copy of the belle feronnière. The artist's name is Carl Wilhelm von Steuben, a German who loves the Wolzog dearly. He works for Gérard, but inside he has different and higher powers than him. He is 23 years old and has a quiet, deep, noble disposition. I have been seeing him every day for 1 1/2 years because I also draw and paint every day in Gérard's atélier. Withdrawn from society, this is my only joy. Steuben receives his mother from his work, who has just lost her husband. The enclosed letter is money, a bill of exchange sent by the mother's son. I sincerely ask you to have this letter sent safely and soon to Petersburg. I am preparing you and Wilhelm a true family present that you will certainly enjoy. The present is my life-size picture, 9-10 feet high, of Steuben. It is ébauchirt and of infinite truth and resemblance [...] "
Wilhelm Humboldt wrote, on the occasion of a visit to Paris, in a letter of April 28, 1814 to his wife:
“Today Alexander took me to the workshop of young Steuben, where he had himself painted for us. He is really a very handsome and amiable person, but speaks almost no German. He came to France very early. Alexander's picture is certainly of great merit. Incidentally, I cannot say that, judging by Alexander's portrait, Steuben has a French manner. The position and treatment is much more natural than in Gerard's pictures and the coloring is far more lively and better ... "
In 1812, Carl Wilhelm von Steuben made his debut in the Paris Salon with the painting Tsar Peter the Great in a Storm on Lake Ladoga , which caused a sensation among experts. Encouraged by his first successes, von Steuben soon devoted himself entirely to history painting, which flourished in Paris in the first half of the 19th century.
Life in the French metropolis repeatedly brought von Steuben into internal conflicts, the fascination of the Parisian bohemian and his military education made him a wanderer between worlds: as an official commitment to his adopted home, he became a French citizen in 1823. The irregularity of his income as a freelance artist, however, contrasted with his conception of duty and social responsibility. In order to secure his family financially, he took a position as a drawing teacher at the École polytechnique .
In 1843 Steuben went back to Russia for 11 years. In Saint Petersburg he created seven paintings for St. Isaac's Cathedral . After a stroke, the artist returned to France in 1854 as a sick man, where two more strokes, suffered in Paris, ultimately made him unable to work.
Carl von Steuben died in 1856 at the age of 68 in his adopted city of Paris.
In 1820 he married the portrait painter Eleonore Trollé, whom he had met while studying at Lefebvre. At the time of their wedding, the couple already had their son Joseph Alexander (* 1814), for whom Alexander von Humboldt took over the sponsorship. Joseph Alexander was instructed in painting by his father and, like his parents, had close ties to the Russian art scene. After studying in Paris and a two-year work stay in Rome, he later spent a total of ten years in Saint Petersburg, where he painted the painting Jacob blesses his children for St. Isaac's Cathedral on behalf of Tsar Nicholas I. In 1840 he was awarded a gold medal at the Paris Salon for his highly acclaimed painting Rubens .
Awards
- 1831: Appointed baron by King Louis-Philippe for his talent and merit;
- 1831: Appointment to the École polytechnique as professor of drawing;
- 1833: Honorary member of the Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg.
plant
Von Steuben remained true to his love of classical painting for a lifetime. He was close friends with Eugène Delacroix , the leading painter of French Romanticism, whom he portrayed several times. Steuben was also one of the representatives of this art movement, which replaced the classicism of the Davidian school in French painting. The “painter of the revolution”, as Jacques-Louis David was called by his students, combined art with politics in his works. The subject of his history pictures supported the historical change, he painted his motifs mainly in hard color contrasts, heavy contours and firm clear outlines. The severity of this style led many contemporary artists - including Prud'hon and Lefebvre - to a romantically transfigured counter-movement. They preferred the shadowy softness and the gentle gradations of color of Italian Renaissance painters such as Leonardo da Vinci or Correggio , whose work they studied intensively. Steuben, too, who had started his training with David, increasingly found his school to be rigid and dogmatic. He soon switched to Robert Lefebvre's master class and then worked under the direction of François Gérard. Critics praise his carefully considered compositions, the excellent brushstrokes and the impressive color effects. His striving for the dramatic design of scenes with many characters also testified to a pronounced tendency towards theatrics.
Factory selection
The most famous paintings by Carl Wilhelm von Steuben are in public ownership.
- 1812: Portrait of Alexander von Humboldt , Berlin ?
- 1812: Tsar Peter the Great in a storm on Lake Ladoga , crayon drawing on blue paper, Amiens , Musée de Picardie. The original was bought by Emperor Napoléon; Louis XVIII later had a reproduction made on a tapestry, a gift for Tsar Alexander I of Russia
- 1814/1817: Copies after Raffael , in Paris for King Friedrich Wilhelm III. executed by Prussia: La Vierge au Linge , 1814; Madonna del Pesce , 1814; La Perla , 1817. Raphael Hall in the Orangery Palace , Potsdam
- 1814: Portrait of Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, later King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia
- 1815: Portrait of Prince Friedrich of the Netherlands , Glienicke Palace , Berlin
- 1819: Saint Germanus, dividing the silver and gold of Childeberts among the poor , Paris, St. Germain-des-Prés Church
- 1822: Mercury and Argus , Compiègne , Compiegne Castle
- 1828/1833: Mercy of Henry IV after the victory at Ivry , ceiling paintings, Paris, Louvre , halls of ancient ceramics
- 1829: Liseuse , Nantes , Musée des Beaux-Arts
- 1830: Napoleon's death on Sankt Helena , Arenenberg on Lake Constance, Napoleon Museum
- 1833/35: Portrait of the Marquise de Béthisy, née Adèle-Mathilde-Emanuelle de Guernonval, as an Oriental , oil on canvas, 235 × 140 cm, Lille , Palais des Beaux-Arts
- 1834/37: The Battle of Poitiers , oil on canvas, 465 × 542 cm, Versailles, Versailles Palace
- 1836: Joan the Mad with the corpse of her husband Phillips the Beautiful , Lille , Palais des Beaux-Arts
- 1839: Esmeralda , oil on canvas, 195 × 144 cm, Nantes , Museum
- 1841: Christ led to Golgotha , Strasbourg, Strasbourg Cathedral
- 1842: Reception of the Mother of God in Heaven , Strasbourg, Strasbourg Cathedral
- 1843: Samson and Dalila , all paintings in Strasbourg, Strasbourg Cathedral
- 1843/54?: Seven paintings for St. Petersburg's Isaac Cathedral: The birth of John the Baptist , Saint Joachim and Anna , the birth of the Mother of God , the Entry into Jerusalem , the Crucifixion , Christ's resurrection and the reception of the Mother of God in heaven .
- 1843/54?: The death of General Moreau in the Battle of Leipzig
- 1843/54?: Portraits of Saint Petersburg personalities (Kokorev, Mamontov, the actor Samojlov and others)
- ??? The Battle of Ivry in 1590 and twelve portraits of famous rulers and generals, Versailles , Musée Historique
- ??? French General Abraham Duquesne , Greenwich , Naval Gallery
- ??? Portrait of Prince Wilhelm , Portrait of Prince Friedrich Wilhelm IV., Portrait of Prince Friedrich of Prussia, Portrait of Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, all in Berlin , Hohenzollern Museum
- ??? Golgotha (Tretyakoff Gallery) and Andalusian (Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow)
The Battle of Poitiers (1834-1837)
This painting, one of Steuben's most remarkable works, was commissioned on July 5, 1834 by the French King Louis-Philippe for the "Musée Historique", which was then set up in the Palace of Versailles, and was completed in 1837. A year later it took its place in the "Galerie des Batailles" belonging to the museum, in which it was to document the fame of France along with 33 other battle paintings.
It illustrates the defeat of the emir Abd ar-Rahman in the fight against Karl Martell at the Battle of Poitiers in October 732. The composition of this dramatic battle scene is articulated around the head of a white warhorse carrying a black-armored knight who, a battle ax swinging, which leads behind a large stone cross from the left storming Franconian armies. A partially bared woman sinks to the ground with a child in her arms. On the right, a long-bearded Arab, wounded by an arrow shot in his left thigh and supported on his shield, raises his sword against three strong attackers who have taken up position on the left in front of the cross. Further to the right in the foreground are the dead and, at the edge of the picture, fleeing Arabs, including women, can be seen. The outcome of the fight is clear: the weapons of the three Franks shown on the left - a lance, an arrow and a sword - are aimed at the unprotected torso of the Arab fighter. In addition to the Arab general Abd ar-Rahman, according to tradition, an estimated 5,000 Moors and around 1,500 francs fell victim to the slaughter.
Steuben's portrayal of the Battle of Poitiers symbolizes in its dramatic drama the victory of Christianity over Islam. At the same time it stands for the conflict between believers and unbelievers.
The Raffael copies
In 1814 the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III. On the occasion of a visit to Paris in 1814 the first opportunity to admire the works of the Italian Renaissance painter Raffael Sanzio, for whom he showed a particular preference, but could use these originals, which were added to those of Emperor Napoléon from all over Europe for his “Musée Napoléon “Belonged to collected works of art, not for sale. He therefore commissioned von Steuben, Heinrich Lengerich (1790–1865), Carl Joseph Begas (1794–1854), Wilhelm Ternite (1786–1871) and other young German-born artists and art students in Paris to make copies.
It was also the aim of the copyists to awaken a new religiously internalized painting. Above all, it was the master's early works that, in their naive piety, came closest to their own endeavors. In their imagination, Raffael lived as an eternal youth who created his pictures according to divine inspiration - a conception that was rooted in the sensitive and soulful world of romanticism.
Friedrich Wilhelm III. distributed the total of around 50 paintings to the living rooms of the royal private apartments of the New Palais . In 1858 they were combined in the orangery of the Sanssouci park in Potsdam in the so-called “Raffael Hall” and made accessible to the public.
In the "Directory of the Royal Painting Copies" from 1861, the works of Carl Wilhelm von Steuben are described as follows:
- La Vierge au linge (Madonna, adorned with a diadem, shows the sleeping Christ Child to little John by carefully lifting a light veil from him): “The copy is from Steuben, distinguished by its loyalty, like all copies in the collection by this famous master, executed in Paris in 1814. She was in the living quarters of the high-soul king Friedrich Wilhelm III. Majesty."
- Madonna del Pesce (Mary, seated on a throne, holds the Christ Child standing on her lap. Both look at the young Tobias with the fish, who is brought in interceding by the angel Raphael. St. Jerome with the lion across from him): “The copy Carl Wilhelm von Steubens, painted in Paris in 1814, is counted among the most perfect. It used to hang in the chamois room of the former royal and now crown prince palace in Potsdam. "
- La Perla (Maria, holding the child on her knee, looks at Johannes, who is offering fruit. Elisabeth on the right, Joseph in the background): “The copy was made by Steuben in Paris in 1817 to a high degree. It also adorned the living quarters of the high-soul king Friedrich Wilhelm III. "
literature
- David Blankenstein: Steuben, Carl Wilhelm von . In: Bénédicte Savoy, France Nerlich (ed.): Paris apprenticeship years. A lexicon for training German painters in the French capital . Volume 1: 1793-1843 . De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-029057-8 , pp. 274-277.
- Leopold von Pezold: Steuben, Karl . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 36, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1893, p. 148 f.
Footnotes
- ↑ Schiller worked in the seclusion of the Thuringian province on his tragedy "Kabale und Liebe" and conducted source studies for his play "Maria Stuart"
- ↑ Humboldt described his impressions in a letter to Charlotte von Wolzüge as follows: “In the last few days I have seen young Steuben at Gérard's and also at my place, who, if I remember correctly, painted your picture. He speaks of you with great affection and warmth. He lives in domestic contact with Gérard, who values his talent and manners. The timid delicacy of this excellent young man forbids any investigation. But it might be possible that I learn something about him through you ... "
- ↑ see Photothèque the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, France , Russian according to other sources in St. Petersburg, Museum
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Steuben, Carl von |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Steuben, Charles de; Steuben, Karl von |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French history and portrait painter and lithographer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 18, 1788 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bauerbach (Grabfeld) |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 21, 1856 |
| Place of death | Paris |