Basil of Ramdohr

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Friedrich Wilhelm Basilius von Ramdohr

Friedrich Wilhelm Basilius von Ramdohr (* 21st July 1757 on Drübber, now part of the municipality Doerverden ; † 26. July 1822 in Naples ) was a temporarily practicing in Dresden conservative lawyer , journalist , writer and kurhannoverscher and from 1806 Prussian diplomat .

Life

Origin and studies

Friedrich Wilhelm Basilius von Ramdohr (1795)

Friedrich Wilhelm Basilius von Ramdohr was born in 1757 as the eldest of six sons of the court and law firm Alexander Andreas von Ramdohr (1724–1782) and Johanna Georgine von Borries . von Hattorf (a daughter of Johann Friedrich von Borries ), born on the Drübber manor , which was owned by the von Ramdohr family from 1686 to 1839 . From 1775 onwards, the versatile Ramdohr studied law and classical studies with Christian Gottlob Heyne in Göttingen , where, together with Ernst Brandes, he became a member of the religious order Z.N. which emerged from the Göttingen Espérancierloge Mars. which was run by Professor Johann Friedrich Blumenbach . In addition, he practiced drawing, pastel, portrait and oil painting as well as writing dramas and staging with amateur theaters. He also visited the important art collections in Europe at an early age. In 1778 he became court auditor in Hanover and was knighthood deputy for the county of Hoya . Until 1781 he had a relationship with the married Charlotte Kestner , née Buff, who, as Goethe's unfulfilled love, was the model for the figure of Lotte in The Sorrows of Young Werther . Ramdohr processed episodes of this love affair in his unsuccessful early work, Kaiser Otto the Third, a tragedy that was published in Göttingen in February 1783, but went almost unnoticed.

Art travel, career, and literary creation

Ramdohr, now dubbed a baron, spent the year 1784 traveling after unhappy love affairs with Christian Gottlob Heyne's wife Georgine and her sister Luise, both daughters of Georg Friedrich Brandes . He stayed in Rome for half a year, a. a. with the Russian Councilor Johann Friedrich Reiffenstein , and also toured Paris, where he stayed as a guest at Friedrich Melchior Grimm and met Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach and Denis Diderot , as well as Vienna, where he made the acquaintance of the playwright Friedrich Ludwig Schröder in October 1784 and campaigned for this in January 1785 with the Duke of York . He had already received the funds for these trips from his grandmother in Celle in June 1781. After his trip to Italy, he wrote the three-part book On Mahlerey and Sculpture Work in Rome for Friends of the Beautiful in Art , which was published in Leipzig in 1787 and was widely used as an art guide. Back in Celle, Ramdohr gave the incentive for many trips to Italy , including for Carl Ludwig Fernow .

For seventeen years from 1788, Ramdohr was senior appellate counselor of the learned bank at the higher appeal court in Celle, the highest court of justice in the Hanoverian states, and at the same time director of the local law firm. Here he was the superior of the secretary Johann Wilhelm Zschorn (1714–1795), whose collection of paintings, left in his will, went to the art collection of the University of Göttingen on February 16, 1796 (there is a portrait of Zschorn in the form of a pastel drawing by Friedrich Wilhelm Basilius von Ramdohr). Ramdohr was probably the curator of the collection at times. On July 14, 1790, he took part in Heinrich Sieveking's revolutionary festival in Hamburg with Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock , Adolph Freiherr Knigge , Friedrich Ferdinand Alexander zu Dohna-Schlobitten , Reimarus and Unzer . In February 1791 he published a critical essay on the prerogative of the nobility to top positions in the state. In 1791 he went on an educational trip to Denmark and became an honorary member of the Mahler, Building and Sculpture Academy in Copenhagen. In 1792 he described the art collection of Baron Brabeck and after the publication of his work Charis or about beauty and beauty in the reproductive arts (Leipzig 1793) he became an external member of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen from 1794. According to Karl August Böttiger , Ramdohr enjoyed in Leipzig and Dresden now received the greatest respect and distinction, and was listened to with amazement everywhere as an oracle about the fine arts . In August 1794 he met Goethe and Christoph Martin Wieland in the Dresden picture gallery and was received by Goethe in Weimar on September 18, 1794, followed later by encounters with Friedrich Schiller , Körner , and in 1805 with the Brothers Grimm , albeit contemporary letters such as the Art historian Johann Dominik Fiorillo , prove that some of his books were perceived as flawed.

Carl Christian Vogel von Vogelstein - Basilius von Ramdohr (1813)

At the end of 1796, Basilius von Ramdohr initiated the marriage with his first wife, the 46-year-old Juliana Wilhelmine Antoinette Davide von dem Bussche , widowed Countess von Oberg (1752-1807). August Wilhelm von Schlegel wrote to Georg Joachim Göschen about this connection on December 22, 1796:

"[...] Do you already know the news that your Mr. von Ramdohr is getting married, namely an old noble widow, who is already a grandmother, the daughter of an upper chamberlain von dem Busche? Their parents are so upset about the mesalliance that they returned the communication to their daughter uninterrupted, Ramdohren replied politely, but forbade further correspondence. Is it just heavenly love that drives him to such sacrifices? and whether he will close his book ( Venus Urania ) with this evidence of heroism? [...] "

In 1798 Ramdohr's four-part work Venus Urania was published , and the following year the two-volume Moral Tales in Leipzig. From September 1800 to February 1801, Ramdohr conducted unsuccessful correspondence negotiations with the Duke of Oldenburg to succeed Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg-Stolberg as President of the Eutin district .

Diplomat, privateer and art critic

In July 1803 he was sent, together with the Legation Councilor von Hinüber , to Napoléon in Paris and Brussels and later again to Paris in order to mitigate the French occupation of the Electorate of Hanover, which had ruled since June 3, which finally resulted in the withdrawal of 7,200 French in October 1803 Soldiers caused. In 1804 Ramdohr was a deputy of the Hanoverian estates in Paris. At a soiree organized by the Danish poet Jens Immanuel Baggesen in February 1804, Ramdohr met Heinrich von Kleist as a guest . In the summer of 1805 Ramdohr met Jacob Grimm in Paris , who afterwards did not have a very high reputation of him. Ramdohr had recently been appointed director of the Cellische Justizkanzlei by the English king when parts of Kurhannover fell to Prussia in February 1806. Ramdohr asked for his dismissal in London, but entered Prussian service as a diplomat in September 1806 and was appointed secret legation councilor by the King of Prussia and chamberlain in Saxony in 1807, with the previous chancellery director's fee being guaranteed as a pension and waiting allowance until an embassy post would become vacant for him. He was now increasingly alienated from his homeland and sold the Drübber manor, inherited from his father, to his younger brother Alexander Andreas. After the collapse of Prussia, Ramdohr, who had been a widower since 1807, temporarily resigned his political activity and lived as a private citizen in Merseburg in 1808 with the canon of Bodenhausen and then in Dresden, where he worked as a freelance legal and art writer, also for the journal Phöbus . In January 1809 he published a critical article about the Dresden painter Caspar David Friedrich, which sparked a violent dispute about the literary newspapers of the time, but also made Friedrich's art known. In mid-March 1809 Ramdohr replied to a reply by Gerhard von Kügelgen with another essay (on critical despotism and artistic originality, as a response to the remarks of Herr von Kügelgen about a criticism of a painting by Herr Friedrich that I had made ).

Envoy to Rome and Naples

In 1810 Ramdohr returned to Italy as the de facto Chargé d'affaires of Prussia at the Vatican, where he wanted to begin a revision of his own principles of art aesthetics and the collection of data for a new critical-historical work on painting. In January 1812 he organized the stay of Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar and his entourage in Rome. In 1813 a collection of Wieland's stories, translated and supplemented by Ramdohr, was published in Paris . Ramdohr had remarried as early as 1812, namely the considerably younger Dorothea Denecke, with whom he was in Rome in August 1813 at the time of the renewed warfare between Prussia and France. While Ramdohr was held back as a prisoner by the French, the pregnant Dorothea, accompanied by Adolf Friedrich August von Rochow (1788–1869) , tried to get back to Hanover via Vienna, but failed due to the chaos of the war. She stayed as a guest in Caroline von Humboldt's house on Vienna's Minoritenplatz until March 1814, where she became seriously ill on February 12, 1814 after the birth of her daughter, Karoline von Ramdohr, and also met David Ferdinand Koreff .

In July 1814 Ramdohr was officially appointed Prussian Chargé d'Affaires and was Minister Resident in Rome until the summer of 1816. In the same year he visited his cousin in Heilsbronn , who was abbot there. The convent house there was very dilapidated, but it was a tradition for the family. This prompted von Ramdohr to donate a large part of the money needed for the necessary repairs to the building. From 1816 he was the Prussian envoy in Naples , where he lived with his wife until the end of his life and interacted with circles of artists and diplomats, such as Prince Heinrich of Prussia , Christian Daniel Rauch and, in 1818, Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld . During this time Basilius von Ramdohr wrote various art news for Cottas Morgenblatt . On the political level he was criticized by Karl August Varnhagen von Ense when he barely mentioned the Carbonari uprising in 1820 in his dispatches. In 1821 he was made a knight of the Royal Prussian Order of St. John (he was also the holder of the Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Ferdinand and Merit as well as the Royal Neapolitan Order ). After suffering from weak nerves for two years, he died in 1822 of paralysis .

Offspring and aftermath

Ramdohr's daughter Karoline, born on February 12, 1814 in Vienna, married Heinrich von Globig auf Florsdorf (1852 Chamberlain in Dresden) in 1834 and died in 1880. The daughter Helene von Globig (born March 9, 1840 Dresden; † 1. January 1913 Görlitz ) married the Prussian captain Konstantin Günther Wilhelm von Hugo (born October 22, 1836 Hermannswaldau; † May 18, 1887 in Maltsch ) on August 14, 1867 in Florsdorf , from which several descendants arose.

Some of the literary greats Goethe, Schiller and Grimm did not take Ramdohr and his writings seriously, while the Romantics around Friedrich and Dorothea Schlegel and Karl Gotthelf Lessing criticized them more or less favorably. In any case, his dramatic and epic works failed to achieve major contemporary success. He became known mainly through the so-called "Ramdohrstreit" a painting by Caspar David Friedrich in 1809. In the film version ( - Caspar David Friedrich boundaries of time ) of the Vita Caspar David Friedrich by Peter Schamoni he was in 1986 by actor Walter Schmidinger shown .

"Ramdohrstreit"

The Tetschen Altar (cross in the mountains), around 1808

Friedrich Wilhelm Basilius von Ramdohr published an article in the “Newspaper for the Elegant World” from January 17 to 21, 1809, in which he sharply criticized the painting “ Cross in the Mountains ” by Caspar David Friedrich, completed in 1808, and with it all of Romanticism . He was bothered by the unacademic style of painting, which had strayed far from the tradition of Claude Lorrain or Jacob van Ruisdael . The critic was even more outraged that Friedrich had dared to present a landscape painting as a religious altarpiece . Ramdohr says in the article: "Indeed, it is a true presumption when landscape painting tries to sneak into the churches and crawl on altars." Ramdohr does not grant the landscape any autonomy. It cannot stand for itself. There is no order and, according to Ramdohr, the image only moves superficially.

The article was received negatively. However, the proponents of Friedrich (including Gerhard von Kügelgen ) felt compelled to formulate their position clearly. The contradiction between immediate life and strict (classical) form is presented. The landscape is an expression of this immediate sensitivity.

Works

  • Emperor Otto the Third, a tragedy [anonymous], Göttingen 1783
  • About painting and sculpting in Rome for lovers of the beautiful in art , Leipzig 1787 ( digitized and full text in the German text archive first part, digitized and full text in the German text archive second part, digitized and full text in the German text archive third part)
  • About JJ Rousseau, Vom Herr Oberappellationsrath von Ramdohr, especially according to his instructions for the third and fourth parts of his denominations , Berlinische Monatsschrift , vol. XVI, pp. 50-85 and 148-183, July and December 1790
  • On the relationship of the recognized nobility of German monarchical states to the other classes of their citizens, with regard to the claim to the first state operations , Berlinische Monatsschrift , February 1791
  • Studies on the knowledge of beautiful nature, the fine arts, customs and the state constitution on a trip to Denmark , Verlag Helwingsche Hofbuchhandlung, Hanover 1792, ( online )
  • Description of the painting gallery of Baron von Brabek zu Hildesheim, with critical remarks and a treatise , 1792 (Reprint: Kessinger Pub Co., Whitefish (Montana) USA, 2009. ISBN 978-1-104-07614-6 )
  • Charis or about beauty and beauty in the reproductive arts , 2 vols., Leipzig 1793
  • Experiments on various objects from morality, literature and social life by Christian Garve , New Library of the Beautiful Sciences and the Freyen Künste (review of an article by Garves on La Rochefoucauld ), Vol. 51, pp. 46-67, Leipzig 1793
  • Venus Urania , 4 vols., Leipzig 1798
  • Moralische Erzählungen , 2 vol., Leipzig 1799 (vol. 2: The stay at Garigliano; or: the four female systems about happiness )   online
  • On the organization of the advocacy class in monarchical states , Hanover 1801
  • Essai sur l'histoire de la princesse d 'Ahlen , Epouse du prince électoral d'Hanovre (depuis roi de la Grande-Bretagne, sous le nom de Georges I ) , Suard's Archives Littéraires de l'Europe, vol. 3 / August 1804, pp. 158–204, Henrichs, Paris, and Cotta , Tübingen 1804 (published without naming the author). Authorship according to the Historical Association for Lower Saxony, 1866, and C. Haase 1968
    • in German translation: History of the Princess of Ahlen (...) , Minerva Vol. 4 / November 1804, pp. 193–224; (Continued as Geschichte der Prinzessin von Ahlden , Minerva Vol. 5/1805, pp. 101–117; 248–275); [Berlin,] Hamburg 1804–1805 (published without naming the author)
  • Phöbus / Eleventh and twelfth booklet, Chapter XX: Emergency and help booklet for artists and art lovers in Mildheim , Leipzig 1808
  • Legal experience or repertory of the most important legal matters , Verlag Hahn, Hanover 1809, several volumes
  • Contes de Wieland et du baron de Ramdohr: traduits de l'allemand par M ***, suivis de deux contes russes et d'une anecdote historique, Paris 1813
  • Revue de Rome artistique pendant d'année 1815

painting

literature

  • Claudia Albes, Christiane Frey (ed.): Representability: on an aesthetic-philosophical problem around 1800. Königshausen & Neumann , Würzburg 2003. ISBN 3-8260-2431-1 , p. 190
  • Hilmar Frank: The Ramdohr dispute. Caspar David Friedrich's "Cross in the Mountains". In: Karl Möseneder (Ed.): Dispute about images. From Byzantium to Duchamp . Dietrich Reimer, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-496-01169-6 , pp. 141-160.
  • Ferdinand Frensdorff :  Ramdohr, Friedrich Wilhelm Basilius von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 27, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1888, pp. 210-212.
  • Carl Haase : News about Basilius von Ramdohr. in: Niedersächsisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte 40. 1968, p. 166ff PDF .
  • James Hall: The sinister side: how left-right symbolism shaped Western art . Oxford University Press , Oxford 2008. ISBN 978-0-19-923086-0 , p. 319
  • Gerhard v. Kügelgen on Caspar David Friedrich: Remarks by an artist on the criticism of Chamberlain von Rahmdohr regarding a picture exhibited by Mr. Friedrich . Newspaper for the elegant world. Leipzig, March 10, 1809, No. 49, Col. 389-392
  • Joachim Lampe: Aristocracy, court nobility and state patriciate in Kurhannover , Volume 1, 1963, p. 325ff
  • Georg Christoph Lichtenberg: Briefwechsel , Ed .: U. Joost, A. Schöne, Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, in Volume V 1, register of persons, p. 830. CH Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-30960-7
  • Roland Mortier: Diderot in Germany 1750–1850 Metzler, Stuttgart (1967), or the French version Diderot en Allemagne (1750–1850) (Volume 15, Travaux de la Faculté de philosophie et lettres de l'Université de Bruxelles) Verlag Slatkine, New edition 1986, p. 43 ff
  • Günther Schulz: Friedrich Wilhelm Basilius of Ramdohr. The untimely art theorist of the Goethe era , in: Goethe NF, 20 (1958), pp. 140–154
  • Axel Schumann: Berlin press and French revolution . The spectrum of opinions under Prussian censorship 1789–1806 . (Dissertation) TU Berlin, 2003 p. 127f. ( online ; PDF; 1.5 MB)
  • Volkmar Sigusch: Personenlexikon der Sexualforschung , Campus Verlag, 2009, p. 572. ISBN 3-593-39049-3

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Joachim Lampe: Aristocracy, court nobility, and state patriciate in Kurhannover: lists of officials and ancestors. 1963; P. 7 ( limited preview in Google Book search)
  2. ↑ cf. E. Henning: Prussian diplomats in the 19th century. 2003, p. 194: Johann Caspar Struckmann: Prussian diplomats in the 19th century . Trafo, 2003, ISBN 978-3-896-26391-9 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  3. ↑ Freemaurer-Zeitung: Handschrift für Brüder, Volume 4, 1850, p. 181 ( limited preview in the Google book search)
  4. ↑ See Ferdinand Frensdorff :  Rehberg, August Wilhelm . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 27, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1888, pp. 571-583.
  5. ↑ cf. Sigusch, p. 572
  6. ^ Maria Benning: Lotte I - Werthers Echte. In: freitag.de. January 10, 2003, accessed January 11, 2015 .
  7. ^ Carl Haase: Niedersächsisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte, 1968, p. 170 ( limited preview in the Google book search)
  8. ↑ Mortier 1986, p. 43ff
  9. ↑ cf. Friedrich L. Meyer : Friedrich Ludwig Schröder. Contribution to the customer of the human being and the artist: in two parts. Volume 1, Hoffmann and Campe, 1819, p. 399 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  10. ↑ I was probably smart that I found you : Heinrich Christian Boie's correspondence with Luise Mejer 1777-85, Biederstein, 1963, p. 97 ( limited preview in Google book search)
  11. ^ Luise Gerhardt: Carl Ludwig Fernow , Verlag Haessel, 1908, p. 23
  12. ^ Eduard Jacobs:  Unzer, Christoph . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 39, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1895, p. 334 f.
  13. ^ See Axel Schumann: Berlin Press and French Revolution: The Spectrum of Opinions Under Prussian Censorship 1789-1806. Dissertation TU Berlin 2001, p. 127f. ( online ; PDF; 1.5 MB)
  14. ^ Annals of the Braunschweig-Lüneburgischen Churlande, Volumes 1–2; Volume 5. S. 204. Hanover 1791
  15. ^ Ferdinand Frensdorff:  Ramdohr, Friedrich Wilhelm Basilius von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 27, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1888, pp. 210-212.
  16. ↑ August Wilhelm Schlegel (1796) ( digital edition of August Wilhelm Schlegel's correspondence , last accessed on May 5, 2020).
  17. ↑ cf. Carl Haase, 1968
  18. ↑ Allgemeine Zeitung Munich No. 229, p. 916, August 17, 1803
  19. ↑ Ludwig H. Schelver: The Electorate of Hanover under the French in the years 1803, 1804 ... Vieweg 1806, page 36
  20. ^ Hermann F. Weiss: Finds and studies on Heinrich von Kleist. Niemeyer 1984, p. 75. ISBN 9783484104822
  21. ↑ J. Lampe: Aristocracy. 1963, p. 325 ( limited preview in Google Book search)
  22. ↑ Richard Starklof: The life of Duke Bernhard v. Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, k. Dutch Generals der Infanterie , Vol. 1, p. 105; Gotha 1865.
  23. ↑ F. v. Oppeln-Bronikowski: David Ferdinand Koreff: Serapionsbruder, magnetizer, privy councilor and poet , 1928, pp. 40, 105, 283 ( limited preview in the Google book search)
  24. ^ Adolph Friedrich August von Rochow: News on the history of the lineage of those von Rochow and their possessions . AW Schade, Berlin 1861, p. 174
  25. ↑ cf. P. 427 K. v. Pichler: Memories from my life ... Volume 6, Verlag G. Müller, 1914 ( limited preview in the Google book search)
  26. ↑ F. u. K. Eggers: Christian Daniel Rauch Volume 1, Ed. C. Dunker 1873, p. 212: Karl Friedrich Peter Eggers: Christian Daniel Rauch . Carl Duncker, 1873 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  27. ↑ July 29, 1820: Karl August Varnhagen von Ense: Correspondence between Varnhagen von Ense and Oelsner. A. Kröner, 1865, p. 84 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  28. ↑ Karl Friedr. Armin Guden: Chronological tables on the history of the German language: and ... Volume 1, part 3, page 90. Gerhard Fleischer, Leipzig 1831 Digitized at Google, accessed January 14, 2015
  29. ↑ Der Oesterreichische Beobachter , p. 1043, Strauss, Vienna 1822
  30. ^ State and learned newspaper of the Hamburg impartial correspondent, No. 141, September 3, 1822. (Full view in Google book search)
  31. ^ Carl Eduard Vehse: History of the courts of the House of Saxony. Hoffmann and Campe, 1854, p. 470 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  32. ^ Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Volumes 92–111, CA Starke., 1989, p. 191 (limited preview in the Google book search)
  33. ↑ D. Schlegel: FWB v. Rahmdohr, Moralische Erzählungen ( Memento from September 12, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) In: phf.uni-rostock.de
  34. ↑ cf. Georg Stanitzek: Stupidity: Descriptions of the Individual in the 18th Century , online , Hermaea Vol. 60, Verlag de Gruyter 1989, p. 230. ISBN 3-110-93045-5
  35. ↑ ARCHIVES LLITTERAIRES DE L'EUROPE, OU MELANGES DE LITTERATURE, D'HISTOIRE ET DE PHILOSOPHIE. 1804, p. 158 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  36. ^ Catalog of the library of the Historical Association for Lower Saxony , Historical Association for Lower Saxony. P. 15, entry no. 1289. Print Ph.C. Göhmann, Hannover 1866 ( limited preview in the Google book search)
  37. ^ Carl Haase: News about Basilius von Ramdohr , in: Niedersächsisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte (New Series of the Journal of the Historical Association for Lower Saxony ), Vol. 40, p. 172; A. Lax, Hildesheim 1968 ( limited preview in the Google book search)
  38. ↑ Digitized version accessed December 11, 2013.
  39. ^ Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage, Foreign Affairs, Legal and Cultural Policy Department (III), No. 18454
  40. ↑ Painters Works of the Nineteenth Century: Contribution to Art History Volume 2, Part 1, 1974, p. 354 ( limited preview in the Google book search)

Web links

Wikisource: Basilius von Ramdohr  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Ramdohr, Basil of
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ramdohr, Friedrich Wilhelm Basilius von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, journalist and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH July 21, 1757
PLACE OF BIRTH Over there, today to Dörverden
DATE OF DEATH July 26, 1822
Place of death Naples