Georg Philipp Rugendas

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
War Camp (1702/03)
Equestrian portrait of Johann III. Sobieski (around 1690)

Georg Philipp Rugendas (born November 27, 1666 in Augsburg ; † August 10, 1742 ibid) was a German painter and engraver who worked mainly in his hometown. He is the founding father of the important artist family Rugendas of the 18th and 19th centuries, which, besides himself, produced important painters like Moritz Rugendas .

Life

origin

The name ending -as because of that, which usually does not occur in either French or German , one suspects the origin of the family in northwestern Spain. His ancestors came to Augsburg via France and Melsungen in Hesse , probably for religious reasons, as the family was Protestant . Rugendas' grandfather Nikolaus I. Rugendas (1575–1658) settled in Augsburg in 1608 and worked as a successful watchmaker. The father Nikolaus II. Rugendas and his mother Anna Marie (née Kreuther) had twelve other children besides Georg Philipp, of which only Nikolaus III. Rugendas continued the family watchmaking tradition.

Life

Georg Philipp Rugendas was born on November 27, 1666 in Augsburg into a wealthy watchmaking family. From 1683 to 1687 he completed an apprenticeship with the Augsburg history painter Isaak Fisches. A purulent fistula on his right hand caused him great problems and it was unclear whether he would be able to continue his teaching at all. So he just tried to paint with his left hand. In all portraits he can therefore be seen with the brush in his left hand. In 1689 he went on a study trip to Rome . From 1690 to 1692 he stayed in Vienna, where he gained influential relationships. In 1692 he traveled on to Venice. During his 14-month stay, he attended the academies there and received his first assignments. The next year he was back in Rome, where he studied at the Accademia di San Luca and drew ancient ruins and sculptures . Because of the death of his father, he returned to Augsburg in 1695. Two years later he married Anna Barbara Haid, who came from an Augsburg family of artists who mainly produced gold bats and engravers. In total, he married three times (1697, 1732, 1734).

In 1698 the painters organized in the guild sent a complaint to the Augsburg city council. Rugendas and a few other artists, including his teacher Fisches, did not want to see themselves as craftsmen but as free artists and no longer wanted to submit to the restrictions of the guild.

1703/1704 Augsburg is besieged and occupied by Bavarian and French troops during the War of the Spanish Succession . Rugendas made many depictions of military events. In 1710 he became the Protestant director of the "Imperial City Art Academy" , according to the parity city constitution of 1648, all important offices had to be filled by a Catholic and a Protestant. The academy rooms were housed in the municipal butcher's house and consisted of a total of two rooms. Her goal was to teach Augsburg artists and apprentices how to draw from living models.

In addition to Johann Elias Ridinger , Rugendas was also one of the teachers of Johann Jacob Haid , who had come to Augsburg for training in 1726.

On May 10, 1742, Rugendas died of a stroke . Four days later he was buried in the Protestant cemetery near St. Stephan.

progeny

His sons Georg Philipp Rugendas († 1774), Christian Rugendas († 1781) and Jeremias Gottlob Rugendas († 1772) also worked as engravers, especially in aquatint and inked manner. Well-known visual artists also came from the family later, such as Johann Lorenz Rugendas (1775–1826) and his son Moritz .

Artistic creation

Rugendas was a special case because he did not specialize in popular history painting , but in battle and horse painting. He lived mainly in the free imperial city of Augsburg and traveled little except for his apprenticeship years. It is therefore assumed that most of his battle pictures did not relate to a specific place or event, but could be generally painted and kept in stock. It was therefore a matter of decorative battle pictures, which, in contrast to the narrative or topographical-analytical battle picture, do not depict a special event, but rather were intended for decorative purposes rather than documenting. These paintings were then resold through middlemen, which is confirmed by a distress sale of almost 50 paintings in 1714. Rugendas mainly painted decorative battle pictures that were limited to a small number of riders and did not show any important historical personalities. The national assignment of soldiers is also avoided. Instead, he used the general soldier fashion of his time. In this way, he was able to devote himself to art freely and independently of content and formal requirements. He also painted events that took place before or after the battles, such as the start of battle and the withdrawal of the army. Also negative side effects such as looting. The personal environment of the soldiers, such as sutlers and prostitutes, was also shown.

The places of action always took place around horses. His most successful creative period was from around 1702 to 1716, which roughly coincides with the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), which turned half of Europe into a theater of war. His customers included prominent and powerful princes such as the Prince of Liechtenstein, who still has a picture of Rugendas in his collection, and Prince-Bishop Lothar Franz von Schönborn , Archbishop of Mainz and Bishop of Bamberg .

So far, seven paintings could be assigned to a specific war scene, including the picture The Liberation of Vienna, painted in 1691 . The essential characteristics of his art are already evident in this earlier work: the concentration of the pictorial events in the foreground, on closely observed, highly dramatic battle scenes, the order of the crowds by means of parallel staggering, light and dark stripes of cavalry squadrons and a corresponding sequence of incident light stripes as well as the change from detailed representations in the foreground to sketchiness.

His pictures are characterized by a preference for dark earth tones, from olive green to reddish brown. His event pictures often refer to sieges of cities, as he himself witnessed in Augsburg in 1703/1704. His experiences were reflected in his painting style. From then on he presented the war in a more knowledgeable and detailed and less heroic manner.

Rugendas also left behind many drawings . Most of them were more of a serving nature, i.e. studies, sketches, etc. His sketches are characterized by the fact that the idea does not arise on paper, but seems to have already been prepared, so that there is no search for the image idea, the preliminary or the unfinished. A typical style of drawing cannot be determined with him, since Rugenda's efforts were directed towards the exact representation of the objects and the end product (painting / graphic) was the goal.

A development can be observed in the course of his life's work. The painterly aspect of the early years turns into linear, the spontaneity of the line and the wash harden. At a young age he draws a lot with black chalk or red chalk, which results in a thicker line. He places eight to ten figures clearly on a sketch sheet. Later he mostly used a pencil, the figures condense and partially overlap. As a motif he mostly used movement and posture studies throughout his life, mainly of fighting and working soldiers. When making sketches of riders, he only draws the riders, not the horses. Only a few drawings of horses have survived.

Works (excerpt)

  • Cavalry battle between the Imperial and the Turks , around 1700, oil on canvas, Heeresgeschichtliches Museum , Vienna
  • Cavalry battle , around 1700, oil on canvas, Army History Museum, Vienna
  • Equestrian portrait of Johann III. Sobieski , around 1690, oil on canvas, 141 × 96.5 cm, National Museum , Krakow
  • War camp , 1702/03, oil on canvas, 76 × 94 cm, Hermitage , Saint Petersburg
  • Two counter-images. Military ideas; with many figures on horseback and on foot.
  • "Pandur attack", "robbery", "village plundering" and "field camp", four paintings, oil on canvas, in the first anteroom in the imperial apartment of the New Residence in Bamberg

literature

Web links

Commons : Georg Philipp Rugendas  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ DIRECTORY OF THE v.DERSCHAUISCHE Kunstkabinett zu NÜRNBERG .... Nuremberg, at the obliged auctioneer Schmidmer., 1825., 250 p., Directory of rare art collections., 1825., Google Books, online , p. 15
personal data
SURNAME Rugendas, Georg Philipp
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and engraver
DATE OF BIRTH November 27, 1666
PLACE OF BIRTH augsburg
DATE OF DEATH August 10, 1742
Place of death augsburg