Friedrich Schöpfer

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Friedrich Schöpfer, portrait by Anton Amesbauer

Friedrich Anton Otto Schöpfer (born January 14, 1825 in Bozen , † February 26, 1903 in Graz ) was an Austrian lawyer and self-taught artist .

Life

Friedrich Schöpfer was born in Tyrol and came from an artistic family. His father Herrmann was a colonel and also worked in drawing in his spare time. He studied law in Innsbruck and Padua and came to Hartberg in East Styria as a lawyer in 1852 . In addition to his profession as a lawyer, he was mainly involved in politics and was already an honorary citizen of his home town of 1,300 at the age of forty. He was close to the 1848 revolutionaries and intrigued above all against bureaucratism , the clergy and the Philistines .

His brother Heinrich (1821–1899) also worked as an officer in drawing.

plant

Dungeon Scene during the 1848 Revolution, Creator

Among other things, the Hartberger Stadtpark was designed according to his plans. A resting place named after him has been created on the Ringkogel as a popular excursion destination.

His artistic work took place in secret and moves in the field of history painting . His special privilege can be seen in the fact that he was able to develop freely without paying attention to the judgments of critics or the public and that, as he wrote himself, works were created that “would remain unworked if one had to give an account of whether he might also be witty or spicy enough and possibly not toast here or there. […] The tendency is mostly directed against the reactionaries, which was very stimulating for me when it emerged in the fifties, sixties and early seventies, if only because this beautiful field was still fallow back then, while now, where the fight is open, general and safe, it has partly been exploited more effectively by significant forces, partly kicked broad and flat by Krethi and Plethi ”.

His works are mostly made of red chalk or linden charcoal and, in the style of Feuerbach or Rodin, show above all human bodies with special expressiveness and design, which are mostly shown moving, fighting or playing around. Compared to rather rigid depictions such as in Feuerbach's Battle of the Amazons , Schöpfer is free to compose sequences of movements by dispensing with model studies. The movements of his pictures run through the crowds like a roller and are transferred to the viewer and thus come to life.

His criticism, which he formulates externally in politics, finds expression in his private life in his pictures. It is based on the forms of expression of the Renaissance and mixes with the stylistic device of caricature . The picture that is signed “Klagenfurt, November 18, 1848” can be seen as a typical testimony to his workshop. One sees a highly decorated officer with a sash , pinstripe trousers and gaiters who is led into a dungeon by a bone man. Contrary to this representative of the establishment , the tomb is filled with revolutionaries who languish in the midst of drinking spirits of the dead. With this picture, Schöpfer wants to show that it is now time to make room for these reactionaries in the realm of the dead. One involuntarily compares Alfred Rethel's dance of death with this picture , which was created in the same year but certainly cannot have been influenced by him, as Rethel did not publish his work until the following year. “He knows how to control a large crowd with ease, to draw every figure into a common, living whole and thus to achieve great clarity and clarity. It is precisely in this that he is superior to Rethel, in whom the effect only emanates too much from individual, monumental figures. The idea of ​​portraying a fight without showing both parties in their struggle for victory would be unthinkable with Schöpfer. On the other hand, in Rethel's dance of death the soldiers remain perfect secondary characters with whom he doesn't know what to do with. "

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ W. Silberbauer: Creator Friedrich Anton . In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 11, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-7001-2803-7 , p. 108.
  2. ↑ a b c d Eberhard Hempel: Friedrich Schöpfer in: Society for Multiplication Art: Die Graphischen Künste , Volume 44, Vienna 1921, pp. 63–72.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Creator, Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Creator, Friedrich Anton Otto (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian lawyer and artist
DATE OF BIRTH January 14, 1825
PLACE OF BIRTH Bolzano
DATE OF DEATH February 26, 1903
Place of death Graz