Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich
Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich , also Christian Guillaume Ernest Dietricy (born October 30, 1712 in Weimar , † April 23, 1774 in Dresden ), was a German painter , etcher and engraver .
Life
Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich was born in Weimar as the son of the court painter Johann Georg Dietrich . His mother was Johanna Dorothea Dietrich, the daughter of the court painter Johann Ernst Rentsch from Weimar. His sister Maria Dorothea Wagner later devoted herself to landscape painting, as did his nephew Johann Georg Wagner . Dietrich's youngest sister Rahel Rosina Böhme also became a painter.
Dietrich received his earliest training in Weimar from his father Johann Georg Dietrich. After moving to Dresden in 1724, Dietrich was supported by the landscape painter Johann Alexander Thiele . August the Strong soon became aware of the young talent and let Count Brühl take care of the further training of Dietrich, who became his patron.
After a long journey, which may have also led him to the Netherlands from 1734, Dietrich was in 1741 by August III. appointed court painter. A subsequent study trip to Italy in 1743, as a result of which Dietrich renamed himself Dietricy, only had a limited effect on Dietrich's work and cannot be proven by the sources. The following years were among Dietrich's most creative and successful. His works were traded all over Europe. He received honorary membership of the academies in Augsburg, Bologna and Copenhagen and in 1764 was appointed director of the painting school of the Meissen porcelain factory . A year later he was given a professorship at the Dresden Art Academy , which he held until his death. After his death, Dietrich's widow arranged for the painter Adrian Zingg to publish a complete edition comprising 87 sheets, some of which Zingg completed. The title page is the fourth impression of a rocky landscape by Dietrich in the style tradition of Salvator Rosa .
plant
Dietrich's work encompasses all areas of material and painting techniques of his time. Various artistic movements from the 17th century can also be found in his oeuvre.
At first, Dietrich limited himself to the imitation of the well-known Dutch painters such as Rembrandt van Rijn , Adriaen van Ostade , Cornelis van Poelenburgh and Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem , but also Antoine Watteau . Technically, his pictures were often so similar that they were sold as real "Rembrandts", for example.
His landscape etchings were highly valued by contemporaries, and Johann Joachim Winckelmann even called Dietrich the “ Raphael of all times in landscapes”. They represent a preliminary stage to realistic landscape painting, which was represented, for example, by his student Johann Christian Klengel . His approx. 181 printed graphic sheets have survived and are characterized above all by the virtuosity of the technique and the range of his motifs. Dietrich's graphic oeuvre includes themes from the Old and New Testaments, mythology, allegory and history as well as landscapes, cattle and shepherds, animal studies, coats of arms, vignettes, decorated letters, half-figures, half-length portraits, genre representations, heads, etc. A main focus is on the representations of landscapes which are etched in the virtuoso manner of the Dutch masters of the 17th century or Italian masters of the 17th and early 18th centuries and form a focus in his graphic oeuvre.
The notorious art thief Stéphane Breitwieser began his foray through European museums in 1995 with a painting by Dietrich, the plastic properties of which reminded him of Rembrandt .
On the occasion of his 300th birthday in 2012, a monograph by the art historian Petra Schniewind-Michel published by Hirmer-Verlag presented the life and work of this extraordinary artist, whose importance had largely been forgotten in the course of the changing taste in art in the 19th century.
literature
- Stephan Brakensiek, Mayari Granados (ed.): Near the Old Masters. Etchings by CWE Dietrich (1712–1774) . Lemgo 2010, ISBN 978-3-936225-30-3 .
- Hans-H. Jungbauer-Haupt: Dietrich, Christian Wilhelm Ernst. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 696 ( digitized version ).
- JF Linck: Monograph of the painterly images erased, scraped and cut into wood by the… court painter and professor… CWE Dietrich: along with an outline of the artist's life story . Berlin 1846.
- Günter Meißner (Ed.): General artist lexicon . tape 27 . Saur, Leipzig 2000, p. 297 .
- Petra Michel: Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich (1712–74) and the problem of eclecticism . Mäander, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-88219-295-X .
- Petra Schniewind-Michel: CWE Dietrich - A Raphael of landscape painting . In: Weltkunst . tape 59 , no. 17 , 1989.
- Petra Schniewind Michel: Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich . HIRMER-Verlag, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-7774-5491-7 .
- Dietrich, Christian W .: Seven views from Saxony's Switzerland and the Ore Mountains as leaves of memory: engraved by Adrian Zingg . Arnoldische Buch- und Kunsthandlung [u. a.], Dresden [u. a.] 1844. Digitized edition
Web links
- Anke Fröhlich: Dietrich, Christian Wilhelm Ernst (called Dietricy) . In: Institute for Saxon History and Folklore (Ed.): Saxon Biography .
Individual evidence
- ↑ JF Linck: Monograph of the painterly images erased, scraped and cut into wood by the… court painter and professor… CWE Dietrich: along with an outline of the artist's life story . Berlin 1846, L158.
- ^ Carl Clauss: Dietrich, Christian Wilhelm Ernst . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, p. 192 f.
- ↑ JF Linck: Monograph of the painterly images erased, scraped and cut into wood by the… court painter and professor… CWE Dietrich: along with an outline of the artist's life story . Berlin 1846.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Dietrich, Christian Wilhelm Ernst |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Dietricy, Christian Wilhelm Ernst |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German painter and engraver |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 30, 1712 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Weimar |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 23, 1774 |
| Place of death | Dresden |