Edmund Wodick
Ludwig Eduard Edmund Wodick (born November 21, 1816 in Markt Alvensleben near Haldensleben , today Bebertal , † March 10, 1886 in Magdeburg ) was a German portrait, genre, landscape and history painter of the late Biedermeier period .
During his lifetime he was one of the most important artists in Magdeburg and also made great contributions to the city's cultural and social life through his extraordinary commitment. The Magdeburg painter Hugo Vogel (1855–1934) is known by name among his students .
Life
Apprenticeship and wandering years
Edmund Wodick came from a family that had lived in Magdeburg and the surrounding area since the middle of the 18th century. In 1816 he was born the fifth of twelve children into modest circumstances. His mother Johanna Caroline Elisabeth Förster (1790–1850) was the daughter of a brandy distiller; his father Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig (1786–1871) worked as a decorative painter in Markt Alvensleben; Wodick must have received his first drawing lessons from him.
After attending the trade and business school in Magdeburg, Wodick completed an apprenticeship there in Julius Brückner's lithographic workshop. Subsequently, a distant relative, the music and publishing dealer Wilhelm von Heinrichshofen , enabled him to study art at the Düsseldorf Academy run by Wilhelm Schadow . Traditional student lists attest to Wodick's training from autumn 1837 to summer 1841. His teachers included the respected portrait and genre painter Carl Ferdinand Sohn and Rudolf Wiegmann , who led the classes in architecture and perspective. Although not mentioned under Wodick's academic professors, the influence of Johann Wilhelm Schirmer and Carl Friedrich Lessing, in particular, in the coloring and in the lifelike conception of the landscape is evident in his later landscape depictions.
After three years of study, Wodick embarked on the Grand Tour, which was mandatory in the 19th century . A bundle of 30 letters from the artist to his fiancée and future wife Louise Renker, preserved in the family archive, provides information about the individual stations and events. Together with his confidante and college friend Clemens Bewer , he traveled in autumn 1841 via Holland and Belgium to Paris. Here he attended the evening class of the highly esteemed history painter and director of the "École des Beaux Arts" Paul Delaroche and trained his eye on originals in the Louvre; In addition to the works of Raffael, Tizian, van Dyck and Murillo, he also copied works by contemporary artists such as Leopold Robert . In addition, Wodick practiced intensively in portrait drawing, for which he almost exclusively used the pencil, which is illustrated by surviving portraits of his French teacher and artist colleague Ernst Benedikt Kietz . In 1842 he took part in the regular art exhibition Paris Salon with a portrait of a gentleman . Wodick financed his nine-month stay, in addition to the support that Louise's grandfather gave him, mainly through the sale of lithographs and copies.
At the end of August 1842 Wodick moved on alone through Switzerland to Northern Italy. From Milan he emigrated with the Düsseldorf painters Eduard Wilhelm Pose and Hermann Schmitz to Genoa and along the Ligurian coast, through Tuscany and Umbria to Rome, where he stayed for a year and a half. He lived with two artist friends in Via della Purificazione on Monte Pincio. In Rome he first immersed himself in the study of the old masters and ancient sculptures. He spent the summer months in the Roman Campagna and now filled his sketchbook with plant, landscape and architectural motifs from Tivoli, Subiaco, Cervara and other places. His preferred drawing utensil remained the pencil, which he knew how to use in many different ways.
In addition to his artistic work, Wodick cultivated the social life in Rome. He quickly found acceptance into the German artist colony. He became a member of the Ponte Molle Society , known for its festivities and legendary parades , in which he acted as "master of ceremonies" at the Cervaro festival in 1843 and in which he was elected "vice president" in 1844. In his Roman sketchbook there are entries and portraits of his painter friends and colleagues Georg Heinrich Busse , Mihály Kovács , Egron Lundgren , Gustaf Wilhelm Palm , Carl Friedrich Werner , Julius Moser and Eduard Heinrich.
Wodick's work as a portraitist as well as a landscape painter brought him more and more commissions in Rome. The Bavarian King Ludwig I and Prince Heinrich of Prussia were among his buyers and admirers as well as well-off nobles. The meeting with a von Wedemeyer family from Hanover was momentous. After she had ordered three large format views of Rome, Naples and Florence from him, she invited him to take a trip through southern Italy, which was followed by a tour of Spain lasting several months in September 1844. From Barcelona it went along the Mediterranean coast in several stages to Málaga and Gibraltar. At the invitation of the Swedish consul, Wodick went on a trip to Tangier and the Moroccan coast. Impressed by the oriental culture, he enriched his sketchbook with novel motifs. He carried out individual figure and costume studies in color or used tinted drawing paper in order to highlight details with white highlights. The use of colored drawing paper can be observed here for the first time during the trip to Spain.
In the spring of 1845, the Wedemeyer group reached Seville, fulfilling Wodick's long-cherished wish to get to know the birthplace and workplace of the Spanish painter Bartolomé Esteban Murillo . Three months later, Wodick was in Madrid, where he met the court painter and director of the Prado José de Madrazo and met his son Federico de Madrazo and other Spanish painter friends he knew from Rome, including the Sevillians José Gutiérrez de la Vega and Antonio María Esquivel as well as Joaquín Espalter and Francesc Cerdá . The stay in the Spanish capital was longer than planned, as Wodick intended to travel on only with the finished copy of the Raphael painting “La Santa Familia de la Perla”, as he wanted to show it in Magdeburg as proof of the success of his studies. In August 1845, he and his tour company set out on their way home via Burgos, Biarritz, Bayonne and Paris.
Work in Magdeburg
After nine years of wandering, Wodick settled in Magdeburg in 1846 - with the aim of promoting the city's cultural life and artistic sense. In the same year he married his childhood sweetheart Louise Renker. The couple moved into an apartment in a multi-storey house in the centrally located Prälatenstrasse No. 5, which Wodick acquired a few years later for himself and his family of five.
The house, which also offered space for a spacious workshop and a school studio, became a sociable meeting place for artists, writers and theater people.
Parallel to the first commissioned works, such as the group picture “Assembly of the Councilors” from 1848, Wodick processed his travel memories into primarily Spanish and exotic-foreign compositions. His fascination, especially for Arab culture, remained unbroken for life. Two works with oriental subjects found their way into the painting collections of Kings Wilhelm I and II of Württemberg .
Wodick established himself in Magdeburg as a sought-after portrait and landscape painter. Over the course of the next three decades he portrayed numerous personalities of high standing from the fields of politics, economics and humanities in Magdeburg, including the mayors Heinrich Behrens and Friedrich Heinrich Bötticher , the Kommerzienrat Heinrich Wilhelm Müller , the merchants August Morgenstern , Karl Friedrich Deneke and David Coste as well the historian, philologist and chairman of the Magdeburg Art Association Friedrich Wiggert and the clergyman and lodge master Johann Friedrich August Klusemann . Wodick received numerous commissions from members of the Magdeburg Johannisloge Ferdinand zur Glückseligkeit , to which he himself belonged since 1849 and in which he actively participated. In 1862 he made a three-quarter portrait of the Prussian King Wilhelm I for the Great National Mother Lodge For the Three Worlds in Berlin, who was his personal model. The image of the ruler, which is no longer verifiable today, has come down to us through a contemporary print reproduction by the Berlin engraver Paul Habelmann .
In addition to painting, Wodick was deeply involved in associations. It is thanks to his commitment that the Magdeburger Kunstverein was able to hold its permanent exhibitions in its own rooms from 1858. He also campaigned for the establishment of a city museum. In 1859 Wodick initiated the “Athene” association for “art, science and humor”, which made a name for itself with its costume parties, but also organized readings and lectures on cultural-historical and legal topics. Wodick remained chairman of the "Athene" until his death. His friend and lodge brother, the pottery manufacturer Johann Otto Duvigneau , who co-founded the Magdeburg Arts and Crafts Association in 1869, held the office of deputy . Wodick was a member of this board from 1871, eleven years later he became its second chairman. In addition to these societies, both gentlemen worked for many years in the artistic committee of the art association. In addition, Wodick was chairman of the Magdeburg local association of the general German art cooperative.
Despite his commitment through commissioned work, family duties and his lively club activities, Wodick still found time for travels and hikes in later years, which preferably took him to the charming central German and European mountain regions: A sketchbook that has been completely preserved in the Magdeburg Museum shows Wodick's stay on 24 double pages 1856 in the Salzburg region. In 1858 he stayed in the vicinity of Teplitz in Bohemia, in 1861 and 1865 in the Bernese Oberland and finally again in 1876 in eastern Switzerland. In numerous sketches and some watercolored drawings, Wodick captured the magnificent mountain world of Switzerland with its diverse mountain and rock formations, deep valleys, atmospheric villages and varied vegetation. Within Germany, Wodick went to Ruhla in Thuringia south of Eisenach in 1870, as well as Reitzenstein and Wilhelmsthal, but mainly concentrated on the local area. He repeatedly roamed the wild and romantic Bodetal and the legendary Harz region. His late work includes two pencil drawings - a plant study and a view of the Bodetal - dated 1877 and 1880.
Religious motifs are an exception in Wodick's oeuvre. According to the current state of knowledge, he painted a no longer verifiable representation of "Christ on the Mount of Olives", which is said to have been in Mitau / Latvia; In 1885 the altarpiece "It is finished" was created for the parish church of St. Georg in Morl near Halle.
Two years after the death of his wife, Edmund Wodick died on March 10, 1886 of complications from pneumonia and was buried in the Magdeburg Südfriedhof . The grave slab is now adorned with a round plaque in relief with the artist's head. The plaster template for this was created by the Berlin-based sculptor Gustav Bläser in 1852.
Despite considerable war losses, the city's cultural history museum has the most extensive collection of both paintings and graphic works by the artist. As a special honor for the painter, a Wodick room was planned in this museum in 1940/41, but this was not implemented as a result of the Second World War.
Works (selection)
photos
- Roman landscape, 1843
- Assembly of Councilors, 1848
- Boar hunt in the Atlas Mountains, 1849
- Family portrait, 1855
- Gentlemen's Society in the Park, 1860
- Prof. Dr. Friedrich Wiggert, 1861
- Landowner Philipp Eduard Coqui and wife Susanne Therese, 1861
- Kommerzienrat Heinrich Wilhelm Müller, 1868
- Hunting party at the gates of Magdeburg, 1877
- District Administrator Adolf von Gerhardt, 1878
- Miramare Castle in Trieste, 1884
- Granada, 1886
drawings
- Portrait Paul Delaroche, 1842
- Portrait of Ernst Benedikt Kietz, 1842
- View into the garden of the Villa d'Este, Tivoli, 1843
- Villa Poniatowski, Rome, 1844
- View of Genoa, 1844
- Coastal landscape near Naples, 1844
- In the palm garden of Elche, 1844
- Douar Souani near Tangier, 1845
- Maurin, 1845
- View of the Gold Tower and Seville Cathedral, 1845
- Burgos Cathedral, 1845
Working in public collections
- Numerous works in the Magdeburg Cultural History Museum
- Eskorial, 1856, Fürst-Pückler-Museum Foundation, Cottbus
- Devil's Wall near Warnstedt, view of Quedlinburg, Bodetal near Thale, triptych 1861, Volmer Collection Foundation , Wuppertal
- Portrait, 1883, Museum Haldensleben
- Two Little Misses, 1861, Jerichower Land District Museum, Genthin
- It is done, altarpiece 1885, Morl parish, Halle (Saale)
swell
- 30 unpublished letters from Edmund Wodick to his future wife Louise Rencker from the period 1838–1845, family archive
- Felix Theobald Edmund Wodick: Family Chronicle of the Wodick Family, 1683 - after 1886, recorded by the painter's grandson, private property, Hamburg o. J.
- Student lists of the Düsseldorf Academy
- Magistrate files and documents from the Magdeburg City Archives
literature
- Lisa Hackmann: Wodick, Edmund. In: Bénédicte Savoy and France Nerlich (eds.): 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. 316-318.
- Matthias Puhle (ed.): Edmund Wodick (1816–1886). A late Biedermeier painter from Magdeburg. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2011, ISBN 978-3-89812-792-9 (catalog for the exhibition in the Kulturhistorisches Museum Magdeburg from March 29 to September 4, 2011 with contributions by Anja Gebauer and Karin Kanter).
- Beate Schroedter: Edmund Louis (Ludwig) Eduard Wodick. In: Portraits of German Artists in Rome during the Romantic Period. Catalog for the exhibition in the Winckelmann Museum Stendal in collaboration with the Bibliotheca Hertziana and the Casa di Goethe in Rome. Rutzen, Ruhpolding 2008, pp. 131/132.
- Anja Gebauer: Spain - travel destination of German painters 1830–1870. Imhof, Petersberg 2000.
- Sabine Liebscher: Wodick, Edmund Louis Eduard. In: Guido Heinrich, Gunter Schandera (ed.): Magdeburg Biographical Lexicon 19th and 20th centuries. Biographical lexicon for the state capital Magdeburg and the districts of Bördekreis, Jerichower Land, Ohrekreis and Schönebeck. Scriptum, Magdeburg 2002, ISBN 3-933046-49-1 , p. 815.
- Carl Maximilian Sombart: On the opening of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum of the city of Magdeburg on December 16, 1906. Magdeburg 1907 (special print).
- Ludwig Clericus: Obituary Edmund Wodick. In: Pallas. Journal of the Kunstgewerbe-Verein zu Magdeburg, Volume 7, 1886.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Wodick, Edmund |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Wodick, Edmund Louis Eduard; Wodick, Ludwig Eduard Edmund |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German portrait, landscape and history painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 21, 1816 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Alvensleben market near Haldensleben, today Bebertal |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 10, 1886 |
| Place of death | Magdeburg |