Friedrich Albert Schmidt
Friedrich Albert Schmidt (born December 9, 1846 in Sundhausen , Alsace ; † January 24, 1916 in Weimar ) was a German landscape painter , draftsman and graphic artist . He is one of the artists at the Weimar School of Painting .
Life
Schmidt was the son of pastor Christian Friedrich Schmidt. After his apprenticeship as a draftsman for calico prints , he worked for several years in Paris. In 1871 he gave up his profession and enrolled on October 31, 1871 to study at the Royal Art Academy in Munich . He attended the nature class of Hermann Anschütz and the painting class of Wilhelm von Dietz . He spent the years from the summer of 1874 to 1878 again in Paris. He became a pupil of Eugène Lavieille and thus came into contact with the contemporary artists of the Barbizon School , above all Corot and Daubigny. The new view of realistic representation of nature in contrast to the classic idealistic landscape composition characterizes Schmidt's work from now on. In particular, Lavieille's perspective on capturing moods in the course of the day and the seasons and his preference for motifs at dusk and on moonlit nights have a lasting effect on the artist and continue into the late Weimar works. At the exhibitions of the Salon de Paris in 1876 and 1878 he was represented with three pictures.
In the fall of 1878 Schmitt traveled to Italy to study landscape and spent the winter months studying the works of the Old Masters in the museums and galleries of Rome. In 1879 he came to Arnold Böcklin in Florence with letters of recommendation from the Parmentier and Passini families . He became his pupil and friend and accompanied him to Ischia and the Ponza Islands in July 1880 . The years up to 1884, in which he was in almost daily contact with Böcklin, had a lasting impact on Schmidt's artistic expressiveness. After the years of apprenticeship in capturing moods under Lavilieille's mastery, the Florentine years followed with Böcklin's rushing color and expressiveness. Both great masters gave the decisive impetus for Schmidt's path to painterly and artistic development and independence. His moody paintings from the early Weimar years show in unobtrusive design and choice of motifs his masterful combination of expressiveness and mood capture, which continued well beyond the turn of the century.
A short stopover in Karlsruhe in 1884/85 near his sick father brought him into closer contact with Ferdinand Keller , a teacher at the Karlsruhe Art Academy, whose estate contained several of Schmidt's sketch sheets.
From 1885 he lived in Weimar and thereby followed the call of Grand Duke Carl Alexander of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach . This made a free studio available to him. After moving, Schmidt taught as a guest lecturer at the Grand Ducal Saxon Art School in Weimar . After he married Berta Walther from Weimar in 1886, Schmidt finally settled in the city. In 1905 Grand Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach awarded him the title of professor.
From the mid-1890s, he spent longer periods abroad in Italy, Holland and France. In Germany, apart from Weimar and the surrounding area, he was particularly attracted by the Chiemgau and Berchtesgadener Land. After the turn of the century, the number and period of his travels increased. The preferred destination was Italy with a focus on the western Riviera. In 1905/06 he spent the winter months on Capri and Sicily . From 1906 he hardly traveled any more. So far only the trips to the Black Forest in 1908 and to the Baltic Sea in 1911 are known. In the summer of 1913, Schmidt suffered a stroke. He died on January 24, 1916 in Weimar.
plant
The years of traveling to France to Lavieille with his environment of Barbizon artists, and especially the years with Böcklin, have permanently shaped Schmidt's artistic development in terms of expression and representation. At least up to the turn of the century they found visible expression in his artistic work. This is particularly evident in the paintings from the early Weimar years to the end of the 1880s. They are made with a lot of love in capturing moods and realistically capturing details, finely painted in the design and in brown-greenish tones. The palette is dark.
Schmidt is one of the painters of realism in the transition to impressionism. His painting style and choice of motifs are attributed to the Weimar School of Painting. As a landscape painter, he worked outdoors and in the studio. He liked to draw the changing moods of light and colors at dusk and in the evening hours over the course of the seasons. During these years his closeness to Lavieille and his Barbizon artist environment is unmistakable, but also to Weimar artists such as Tübbecke, Weichberger, Hagen and Buchholz. The initially fine painting with a dark palette changed at the beginning of the 1890s. Overall, his pictures are brighter and more colorful, similar to most of the artists at the Weimar School of Painting. There are more and more motifs with light-flooded parks and landscapes. From the middle of the 1890s, the fine painting became rarer and was hardly to be found until the turn of the century. The application of paint is becoming increasingly flat.
Schmidt was always on the lookout for new artistic approaches and experimented with ink drawings, etchings and graphics, as well as with portrait and landscape motifs, but ultimately he remained connected to landscape painting and oil paints.
The longer journeys that began in 1895 were reflected not only in the color palette and brushwork, but especially in the choice of motifs. The pictures of these short trips to Italy, the Berchtesgadener Land, Holland and France show an increasing change in the way we capture moods and forms of expression. His love after the turn of the century was undivided for Italy. The pictures, which were taken in the course of many trips up to 1906, document a new, clearly delineated era. With the Black Forest pictures of 1908, however, he again followed on from his painting style of the 1890s in terms of design and palette.
Selection of works
The artist's most important works include early works from his years with Böcklin as well as the pictures from the first Weimar years up to around 1895. The Berlin anniversary exhibition in 1886 was his first major exhibition in Germany. It was quickly followed by other major international exhibitions in Berlin, Leipzig and Munich, where some of his pictures were shown. F. Bötticher gives an overview of this by name. The following are representative of the list: Siren Island , created around 1883, exhibited at the Berlin anniversary exhibition in 1886; Silent spring landscape , exhibited at the Berlin art exhibition in 1888 and Twilight , exhibited at the Munich annual exhibition in 1889. In 1898 the artist gave the painting Twilight to his sponsor Grand Duke Carl Alexander on his 80th birthday. Today it is owned by the Klassik Stiftung Weimar
Friedrich Albert Schmidt, Landscape with Cows at the Waterhole , Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of William & Mary
literature
- Germany, Austria-Hungary and Switzerland: Scholars, Artists, etc. 1911, p. 510
- Thieme-Becker Vol. 22, 1928, p. 477
- F. Bötticher: Malerwerke des 19. Jh. II.2, Verlag H. Schmidt u. C. Günther, Pantheon Verlag 1941, reprint 1901
- F. Runkel, Carlo Böcklin (Ed.): In addition to my art: flight studies, letters and personal matters , Verlag Vita, 1909
- Klaus Dieter Gaus: Friedrich Albert Schmidt, 1846–1916: Landscape painter Weimar School of Painting - biography and catalog raisonné . 3rd revised edition. Heidelberg 2018, doi: 10.11588 / arthistoricum.302.437
- Heinrich Alfred Schmid: Arnold Böcklin , 2006 ebooks Gutenberg # 18436, + Verlag E. Bruckmann, Munich 1922
- Catalogs of the Paris Salon 1673 to 1881, 60 Vol. Compiled by HW-Janson Garland Publishing, 1977
- Kunstchronik 24, a weekly for arts and crafts . Edited by Thieme + Graul, 1998/99, No. 23, p. 364
- Horst Ludwig: Lexicon of Munich Art, Munich Painters in the 19th Century (Volume 4), Bruckmann Verlag, Munich 1983
- Jenaische Zeitung , from Journals @ URMEL with 16 entries on F. Albert Schmidt, 1901–1912
- Hans Holenweg, Franz Zelger: Arnold Böcklin, The drawings false attributions, Hirmer, Munich, p. 348 ff
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Schmidt, Friedrich Albert |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German landscape and portrait painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 9, 1846 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Sundhausen |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 24, 1916 |
| Place of death | Weimar |