Emil Zeiss

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Self-portrait from his student days

Emil Zeiß (born  July 2, 1833 in Stapelage, today a district of Hörste , a district of Lage , †  April 14, 1910 in Schwalenberg ) was a German Protestant pastor and painter. His complete works include 33 sketchbooks and 1,092 documented individual works, most of which were bequeathed to the Lippe State Museum by his son .

Life

Self-portrait of his drawing teacher Ludwig Menke (1822–1882)

Emil Zeiß was the eldest of nine children in the pastor's family of Wilhelm Zeiß and Friederike Louise Zeiß, nee. Nagel, born. Already in his childhood he kept sketchbooks, as evidenced by one from 1843. He attended the Leopoldinum grammar school in Detmold , where he benefited from drawing lessons from Ludwig Menke. After graduating from high school in 1853, he began studying Protestant theology at the Philipps University of Marburg , following in the footsteps of his grandfather and father, who had also studied theology there. Emil Zeiss was, however, dependent on a "consistorial scholarship" from the Lippe church authorities, since his father could not help him because of his tight financial circumstances. In Marburg he valued Ernst Henke's lectures on church history and found in him a patron of his interest in Christian architecture. In particular, he was also concerned with the Elisabeth Church in Marburg , of which two drawings have been preserved.

In 1855 he finished his studies in Marburg, spent the summer as a private tutor at Blonay Castle and then continued his theology studies in Zurich in autumn . In 1857, before the first theological exam, he applied to run the rector's school in Horn in the hope of a paid position in his homeland in Lippe. Thanks to his skillfully written application and the fame of his family, he was temporarily hired, but had to catch up on the teacher’s exam, which he did not succeed at the first attempt due to a lack of knowledge of mathematics. However, he was allowed to keep the position and succeeded in taking the exam on October 28, 1857. During his time in Horn, he married Mathilde Klemme, the bourgeois daughter, on October 5, 1860.

East view of the church in Heiligenkirchen in a drawing from 1888

On November 30, 1859, after passing the first theological exam, he was accepted as a candidate for a preaching office in the reformed regional church. Three years later, on November 12, 1862, he passed the second theological examination. Two years later he was called as pastor in Barntrup and stayed there for two decades. In 1876 Emil Zeiß was appointed superintendent of the Brake class of the Lippische Landeskirche . In 1886 the pastor's position in Heiligenkirchen became vacant, where Emil Zeiß was able to prevail against four other applicants.

In 1904 he suffered a stroke and retired a year later. He died in Schwalenberg in 1910, where his son Alexander Zeiß held a pastor's position from 1885 to 1938.

plant

Emil Zeiß mainly made watercolors and pencil drawings, but there are also some oil paintings. The thematic focal points included, in particular, architectural representations, views of places and landscapes. Although he occasionally gave pictures to friends and relatives, he could not be persuaded to take part in exhibitions during his lifetime, even though there were requests to do so. He was friends a. with the painter Carl Gehrts (1853–1898). The cooperation with the senior judge and librarian Otto Preuss, who was responsible for the princely public state library, was important. In 1853 Preuss published a first list of historical and artistic monuments in the Principality of Lippe . He then tried to collect drawings for the monuments and found support from Emil Zeiß. Numerous drawings were made for this collection in 1863 and 1864 in particular. A total of 196 works can be identified that belong to the Lippe State Library. Today his numerous city and village views of Lippe are important sources of local and regional history, which show the cities and villages before the industrialization that began in Lippe between 1860 and 1880.

Hof Wendt in Heiligenkirchen in a watercolor from 1888

In 1911, a year after his death, a large number of his pictures were first published in the Lippe number of the Lower Saxony magazine . Further publications followed in 1926 and 1938 by the state curator Karl Vollpracht, who thus proved the loss of numerous churches and buildings still documented by Zeiß. In 1931 there was a first exhibition of Zeiss' works in Detmold. After the Second World War, the Lippische Heimatbund in particular published several illustrated books in 1958 and 1961. As part of the Westfalia Picta project , which endeavors to record all historical views of Westphalia before 1900, the rich estate from Lippe was particularly appreciated , whereby the artists Ludwig Menke, Emil Zeiß and Carl Dewitz are mentioned by name. Vera Scheef and Heinrich Stiewe compiled a catalog raisonné that was published in 2001.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Burkhard Meier, Vera Scheef and Heinrich Stiewe: Emil Zeiß 1833–1910: A priest and artist from Lippe . Published by the Lippisches Heimatbund and the Landesverband Lippe, Verlag topp + möller, Detmold 2001, ISBN 3-9807369-0-3

literature

Web links

Commons : Emil Zeiß  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Zeiß, Emil
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant pastor and painter
DATE OF BIRTH July 2, 1833
PLACE OF BIRTH Stacking
DATE OF DEATH April 14, 1910
Place of death Schwalenberg