Franz Horčička

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"To Arms", 1826 ( HGM ).

Franz Horčička (also Frantisek Horczicka, Horcziczka or Horziczka , born June 29, 1776 in Prague , † April 5, 1856 ibid) was a Bohemian portrait and history painter .

Life

As the son of an art gardener, he was instructed early on in how to reproduce flowers and fruits, and his extraordinary ability to observe was noticeable. From 1786 Horčička was a pupil of the imperial school for drawing art in Prague, his teacher there was Ludwig Kohl (1746-1821). From 1800 he studied at the Prague Art Academy , where he was awarded two prizes. His teacher there was Joseph Bergler , who became director of the academy in the same year.

Horčička carried out various experiments in painting technique. In this way he sought to rediscover the means by which the old masters , and especially the Dutch , had given their colors a bond. In particular, he dealt with a tempering agent called Balsam copaive , acquired from a “painter of Dutch descent”, to replace what he saw as “unreliable oil painting ”. With an almost scientific zeal, he studied the wall paintings from the 14th century at Karlstein Castle , which were then just being renovated. He put the results of his many years of painting technique investigations in the text " Byzantine Encaustic ", but without publishing them. Only the painter Josef Navrátil and the writer Julius Maximilian Schottky could occasionally benefit from these studies.

Prince Hieronymus von Colloredo-Mansfeld appointed Horčička in 1808 as a restorer of his Prague painting collection, in 1820 he was promoted to the position of gallery director and head of the copy room there. From 1811 onwards the artist sent to the art exhibitions he had initiated in Prague, but was not particularly productive artistically, especially as far as history painting was concerned, so that today only a few works by his hand have survived. These in turn are located in several smaller and larger churches in and around Prague. In the Museum of Military History in Vienna there is a history picture that Horčička painted around 1826 in memory of the establishment of the Bohemian Legion of voluntary students at Prague's Clementinum in 1800.

Horčička achieved greater achievements in the field of portrait painting , so he was considered by his contemporaries as a "master of physiognomic characteristics" and was only later surpassed by Jakob Ginzel .

When Horčička died in Prague in 1856, in addition to a cycle of sketches on the history of Bohemia, two other manuscripts with the titles “ The General Basis of Color Language ” and “ Artificial Words of the Czech Language in Visual Art (Painting, Sculpture and Perspective) were found in his estate Mouths of the people and collected from ancient manuscripts ”. These writings also remained unpublished.

Works (excerpt)

  • To the weapons. Archduke Karl with representatives of the Bohemian-Moravian student body battalion in the Prague Clementinum , oil on canvas, around 1826, 77 × 109 cm, Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna.

literature

Web links

Commons : František Horčička  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Vollmer (ed.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists from Antiquity to the Present, Volume 17, Leipzig, 1924, p. 504 f.
personal data
SURNAME Horčička, Franz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Horczicka, Frantisek
BRIEF DESCRIPTION bohemian painter
DATE OF BIRTH June 29, 1776
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague
DATE OF DEATH April 5, 1856
Place of death Prague