Friedrich Geselschap

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Friedrich Geselschap (1897),
photo by Wilhelm Fechner

Friedrich Geselschap (born May 5, 1835 in Wesel , † May 31, 1898 in Rome ) was a German history painter .

life and work

Early years

Composition for “Dante” influenced by Schnorr von Carolsfeld

Friedrich Geselschap came as the youngest child of a merchant family from Wesel on the Lower Rhine . After the early death of his parents, he lived with relatives in Silesia from 1850 , first in Neisse and later in Breslau , where he attended high school. There he received his first drawing lessons from the painter Ernst Resch , who recognized his talent and advised him to go to college. A scholarship enabled him to attend lectures at the Dresden Art Academy with Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld . This inspired him to study the exhibits in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister . Under the guidance of this teacher, the first compositions based on Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy were created .

After two years the young painter left the Saxon metropolis and moved to Düsseldorf in order to perfect his skills. Not least because his older brother Eduard (1814–1878), who was also a painter, lived there. He first studied with Theodor Mintrop , a close friend of his brother. In Düsseldorf he made friends a. a. A cordial relationship soon developed with Ernst Deger and especially with Mintrop. Geselschap continued his classes at the Düsseldorf Art Academy . His professors included Karl Ferdinand Sohn , Heinrich Mücke , Karl Müller , Wilhelm von Schadow and Eduard Bendemann .

All of the named were representatives of the so-called Düsseldorf School of Painting , which was influenced by the first academy directors Peter von Cornelius and Wilhelm von Schadow in the spirit of the Nazarene movement. The romantic-religious aspects of this art movement had little influence on Geselschap's artistic development. Rather, he orientated himself on their classical ideas. It is models from antiquity and the preoccupation with the Italian masters of the Renaissance , above all Raffael , who made Geselschap a supporter of idealism . He took the painting of Peter von Cornelius as a model and over the years came into a certain contrast to the predominant art movements " realism " and " naturalism ".

In 1859 he became a member of the Malkasten artists' association . After completing his training, a period of economic hardship followed and he was often only able to earn a living with poorly paid portrait assignments from the bourgeoisie and officers of the Düsseldorf garrison. A trip to Italy to see the works of Raphael or Michelangelo with his own eyes was out of the question, but he did not lose sight of this project. He had to wait ten years for this dream to come true. Through the mediation of Wolfgang Müller von Königswinter , he received a generous gift from the art lover August Lucius in 1866 . Now he had the means to stay in Rome. On the outward journey he stayed in Florence for some time and copied several works by Raphael at Müller von Königswinter's request. In Rome he met the circle around Friedrich Overbeck and found there the connection to the Nazarenes.

He had a brief friendship with Overbeck, who died on November 12, 1869, and Friedrich Geselschap drew his picture of the dead. Both men shared common convictions and held fast to the conservative ideal of the early Nazarene, even after the religious painting of the late Nazarene was long overtaken by post-romanticism and realism.

In Italy he made friends with Heinrich Dreber , Viktor Paul Mohn and especially with Heinrich Ludwig , who instructed him in the old fresco techniques . In Rome in 1869/70 the most important works were the cardboard boxes “Dante with Virgil” and “Francesca da Rimini”.

Berlin time

After the German Empire was founded in 1871 there was a great need for an identity-creating and representative, if not to say monumental, representation of the unity that had been gained. This development, which was reflected in all the arts, contributed to Geselschap moving to Berlin in 1872. Although he was prepared like few for the monumental style of the time, he initially received hardly any commissions and in the next few years was only able to keep himself afloat with small works, for example for the decoration of the houses of some art-loving private people.

Dwasieden Castle from Hitzig's sketchbook from 1879

One of these orders came about in 1873 through the mediation of the Leipzig architect and construction clerk Hugo Licht and Geselschap designed wall and facade decorations, including a chimney frieze , for the Berlin villa of the industrialist August Heckmann . In a humorous way, it shows the expulsion of the evil spirits who escape through the chimney. Similar commissions followed, but were only able to alleviate the economic hardship that plagued the artist's life at the time. Only the work he did in Dwasieden Castle near Sassnitz on the island of Rügen on behalf of Adolph von Hansemann brought a turning point. His composition with putti and marine animals in sgraffito aroused the interest of the leading architect Friedrich Hitzig . He was a building officer and one of the leading representatives of his guild in Berlin. He became a committed supporter and advocate for Geselschap and gave him his first major contracts for public buildings in Berlin.

Architectural design, around 1870

During the construction work on the newly founded Ministry of Commerce in 1879, he was involved in the elaboration of the paintings in the stairwell of the Asia and Russia department together with Moritz Meurer and Johannes Schaller . Encouraged by the success, in 1877 he and his friend Georg Bleibtreu applied for the tender for the main painting of the imperial palace in Goslar . The competition was decided by Hermann Wislicenus , but Geselschap at least won second prize with his designs for the frescoes, which earned him further recognition. In 1878 Hitzig, who used his influence as the architect of the Reichsbank building, entrusted him with the painting of the conference room. Nine lunettes with allegories of the German imperial cities were created. For the Kunstgewerbemuseum (KGM) he made glass mosaics depicting progress in trade and change from antiquity to the Renaissance in symbolic groups of figures. This was followed by an order from the Ministry of Culture for the frescoes in the stairwell of the Schinkel University building in Halle . For this purpose he only made drafts and passed the project on to his friend Gustav Spangenberg , as a much more attractive task was waiting.

Once again it was Hitzig who, in addition to his function as President of the Academy of Arts , was in charge of the conversion of the Berlin armory into a hall of fame from 1877 , which was largely thanks to Geselschap being entrusted with the painting of the armory dome in 1879.

In the arched fields of the domed vault, he created four large allegorical images with casein paints that depict war, peace, the restoration of the German Empire and the reception of the heroes in Valhalla . In addition, there was a circumferential dome frieze with a total length of 70 meters. It shows the triumphal procession of a Roman general with ideal figures floating on clouds. In the four Kuppelpendentifs are medallions with personifications of the cardinal virtues shown wisdom, courage, justice and temperance.

During the execution he was u. a. artistically supported by Rudolf Eichstaedt and Friedrich Stummel . This project, which is considered to be his main work, represents his final breakthrough as an artist. But it should also tragically determine his future life. While he was working in 1880, when he fell from the scaffolding, he suffered a knee injury that was no longer healing. Among other things, this was one of the reasons why he was only able to complete the work with great effort after 11 years of work.

The enormous work did not meet with unanimous approval; it seemed too strongly contrary to the prevailing conception of art. His mentor, Hitzig, died in 1881 and was sorely absent. But the applause of his colleagues was inevitable and the success was reflected in various ways.

Friedrich Geselschap - Triumphal procession (sketch) .jpg
Detail of the dome frieze “Triumphzug” for the Hall of Fame in the Berlin Armory. Sketch, graphite and body colors.

Offices and Awards

  • In 1882 he was accepted as a member of the Academy of the Arts (ABK) Berlin.
  • In 1883 he was appointed professor;
  • In 1884 he was elected Senator of the ABK to succeed Oskar Begas .
He also temporarily assumed the position of chairman of the Department of Fine Arts.
  • In 1885 he was appointed a member of the Academy of Building and the Prussian State Art Commission.
  • In 1886 he was offered honorary membership of the Munich Art Academy .
In the same year, the boxes of his designs for the Hall of Fame were awarded the Great Golden Medal of the Great Berlin Art Exhibition . The original boxes were purchased and exhibited by the Royal Museum of Decorative Arts in Brussels .

Further work

Friedrich Geselschap - Beethoven's birth, draft (frameless) .jpg
Friedrich Geselschap - Beethoven's birth, watercolor study.jpg

Geselschap was still busy completing the paintings in the Hall of Fame, but he interrupted the project every now and then and put small-scale work in between. An example of this is the two-part frieze created in 1886 on the facade of the Berlin Art Academy on the occasion of the 90th birthday of Kaiser Wilhelm I.

In the years 1892 to 98 he created numerous smaller works, including the most important:

  • For the Gnadenkirche in Berlin , the box was created for a mosaic round picture of Salvator mundi with angels making music.
  • For the triumphal arch of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin, built by his friend Franz Schwechten, the cardboard boxes for the mosaics of the apostles Peter and Paul as well as for the angel dance.
  • Several designs for the allegorical painting “Beethoven's Birth” for the Beethoven House in Bonn are also works from this period. The images on the right show a graphite sketch on cardboard at the top and a watercolor study of this work of art at the bottom, which he was no longer able to implement.

Last years of life

Geselschap struggled with increasing health problems associated with his accident in 1880. From 1891, an almost complete paralysis of his right leg made it impossible for him to personally carry out his designs. In 1897 he had to splint his leg and finally give up his studio at 12 Lützowplatz. The Berlin businessman Alexander Flinsch took him in and took care of the sick person.

In the autumn of 1897 he went on a vacation trip to Rome. He wanted to use the time there to regain his strength for the tasks ahead of him. He had been commissioned to paint the Friedenskirche in Potsdam and the ballroom of the new Hamburg City Hall and had already made good progress with the designs. However, the hoped-for improvement in his suffering does not seem to have occurred, but rather to have worsened. This presumably led to severe depression . On May 31, 1898, he left his accommodation without telling anyone. Two days later he was found hanged from a tree in the grounds north of the Porta del Popolo near the "Fontana dell'Acqua Acetosa" fountain. According to other sources, his body was not found until June 3, 1898. In both cases the editors had not yet heard of this when the following brief information appeared in the June 4, 1898 issue of the Thorner Presse:

  (Disappeared scholar)
  Profeſſor Friedrich
  Ge ,el ,chap
  , who is doing wall paintings for the House of the German Embassies in Rome , has
  disappeared on Tuesday  noon. The   investigations by
  the police have remained
unsuccessful to this day.

In the obituary dedicated to him by the Senate of the Art Academy, it says: “So the German nation, once it gets to know him fully, will revere in him one of its best men, but he will remain a guiding star for future generations in German art Pointing the way to the heights of the artistic ideal ” .

Geselschap made numerous friendships, but remained unmarried. His grave is in the cemetery of non-Catholics, the Cimitero acattolico in Rome. The elaborately designed bronze tombstone is the work of the Berlin sculptor Rudolf Siemering .

Selection of works

reception

Friedrich Geselschap is regarded as the most important history painter of the great style in the successor of Peter von Cornelius and Alfred Rethel . His excellent art of drawing, which is reminiscent of Albrecht Dürer's lines , is preserved in numerous public collections. The majority of his paintings, counted as monumental art, were destroyed in the Second World War.

literature

Web links

Commons : Friedrich Geselschap  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Roth, Carsten: Geselschap, Friedrich . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 52, Saur, Munich a. a. 2006, ISBN 3-598-22792-2 , p. 493 (ff.?). via AKL online .
  2. ↑ Curriculum vitae on the Saxonia Gallery
  3. ^ Henri Hymans, Brussels, published by EA Seemann
  4. ↑ a b General German Biography , Volume 49, Leipzig, 1904
  5. ^ HA Lier: Geselschap, Friedrich , in: Biographisches Jahrbuch und deutscher Nekrolog, Verlag Georg Reimer, Berlin 1899, pp. 269–271, here p. 270.
  6. ^ Edition of June 4, 1898 of the Thorner Presse
personal data
SURNAME Geselschap, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German history painter
DATE OF BIRTH May 5, 1835
PLACE OF BIRTH Wesel
DATE OF DEATH May 31, 1898
Place of death Rome