The warrior and his child

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The warrior and his child (Theodor Hildebrandt)
The warrior and his child
Theodor Hildebrandt , 1832
Oil on canvas
105 × 93 cm
Old National Gallery

The warrior and his child , also The warrior with his child , is a painting by Theodor Hildebrandt . It was created in Düsseldorf in 1832 , quickly became popular and is considered “the first historicist genre painting ” of the Düsseldorf School of Painting .

Description and meaning

The oil painting with the height of 105 cm and the width of 93 cm shows a father with his toddler in the interior of a historical apartment . According to the characteristics of clothing, furnishings and architecture, the scene can be assumed in a German city of the Renaissance period . In particular, it suggests a velvet skirt with wide sleeves, a breastplate and a chain mail and a hanging on the wall Schaller and a sword , as a military person their means - "Warrior" - identification. This is also indicated by the Schnell standing on the window sill , a relief-adorned drinking vessel made of earthenware with a tin lid, which was used in the 16th century especially in the area of ​​the Duchy of Berg , and the slug panes in the window, the glass of which reflects a historical view of the city . The historicism arrested the painter placed his motive in the Renaissance and were objects of this era in the minds of contemporary late romantic again.

The toddler, dressed in a white nightgown, with blond curls, pensively gazing into the room, which the warrior has on his left thigh and holds with his left arm, tugs his father's mustache , whereupon he smilingly lifts his right index finger . This makes a loving father-child relationship visible . In children, contemporary viewers saw the gracefully naive embodied in man, still in the archetypal sense of Schiller's idealism , in the warrior the ideal of the noble knight . The painter placed these ideals in a Christian context with a cross hanging in the window reveal. It enhances the warrior through the echoing motif of the soldier of Christ .

The effect of the picture is mainly based on the touching contrast between the bearded, armored warrior and the tender, playful toddler and is supported by the light-dark contrasts inherent in the composition, the effective use of light, the painterly treatment of the material and the detailed realism of the finely painted painting .

Origin and provenance

Theodor Hildebrandt, the painter of the picture, was a master student of the portrait painter Wilhelm Schadow , whom he  followed from Berlin to the Rhine in 1826 after his appointment as director of the Düsseldorf Art Academy . On a study trip that Schadow and Hildebrandt undertook to Antwerp and Paris in 1829, they got to know the painting of Belgian realism and its representative Gustave Wappers personally. As a result of the examination of Belgian and French models, Hildebrandt, from 1832 assistant teacher at the Düsseldorf Academy, introduced “Belgian coloring”, detailed realism and a preference for the dramatic effect in Düsseldorf painting.

The robber and his child (Robber with child on Bergeshöh ') , painting by Carl Friedrich Lessing , 1832

At about the same time, the painter Carl Friedrich Lessing dealt with the subject of the father-child relationship in the painting The Robber and His Child (Robber with Child on Mountain Hill) in Düsseldorf . This painting, too, marks the new trend in Düsseldorf painting: it increasingly gained independence from literary material and tended towards folk and genre-like.

For the figure of the warrior, the painter's friend Rittmeister Ferdinand von Sydow , at that time chief of an squadron of the Westphalian Uhlan Regiment No. 5 stationed in Düsseldorf, sat as a model . His wife Johanna, née Groschke (1810–1872), was a sister-in-law of Schadow.

Shortly after completion, the Berlin collector Joachim Heinrich Wilhelm Wagener acquired the picture. After his death it came into royal possession in 1861 through the donation of the collection. It thus formed a basis for the Alte Nationalgalerie, which was planned from 1862 onwards . At times, the picture was later made available on loan to the Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf. In 2017 it was shown in an exhibition in the riding hall of Schloss Neuhaus in Paderborn .

Reception and aftermath

The warrior with his child , engraving by Eduard Mandel , 1835
The warrior and his child , porcelain painting by the Nathusius porcelain factory

The painting quickly became popular and praised as “the sensual fullness of life”. From 1835 onwards it was spread through a copper engraving by Eduard Mandel . In addition, the porcelain factory Nathusius had the popular motif displayed on cups. The poem The Warrior with His Child was published by the poet lawyer Theodor Amelang in 1844 :

"Can you pull my beard
Little mischievous patron?
I would pluck other birds
But I'll forgive you. "

literature

  • Bettina Baumgärtel : The historical image on the way to the genre - New father image . In: Bettina Baumgärtel: The Düsseldorf School of Painting and its international impact 1819–1918 . Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86568-702-9 , Volume 2, p. 175.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bettina Baumgärtel : The historical image on the way to the genre - New father image . In: Bettina Baumgärtel: The Düsseldorf School of Painting and its international impact 1819–1918 . Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86568-702-9 , Volume 2, p. 175
  2. ^ Ute Ricke-Immel: The Düsseldorf genre painting . In: Wend von Kalnein : The Düsseldorf School of Painting . Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1979, ISBN 3-8053-0409-9 , p. 151
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Cortjaens: Between institutionalization and individual exchange. German-Belgian cultural transfer using the example of the Düsseldorf School of Painting from 1831 to 1865 . In: Bettina Baumgärtel (Hrsg.): The Düsseldorf School of Painting and its international impact 1819–1918 . Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86568-702-9 , Volume 1, p. 163
  4. ^ Wolfgang Hütt : Die Düsseldorfer Malerschule 1819–1869 . VEB EA Seemann Buch- und Kunstverlag, Leipzig 1983, p. 52
  5. ^ Friedrich Schaarschmidt : On the history of Düsseldorf art, especially in the XIX. Century . Art Association for the Rhineland and Westphalia, Düsseldorf 1902, p. 82 ( digitized version )
  6. ↑ Manfred Stienecke: Pictures of the Biedermeier Period and Romanticism . Article 6 October 2017 Portal Westphalia-leaf .com , accessed on February 17, 2020
  7. ↑ The warrior and his child . In: Wend von Kalnein , p. 336 (Catalog No. 102)
  8. ^ Theodor Amelang : Poems . FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1844, p. 207 ( Google Books )