George Master

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George Meister, copper engraving by Moritz Bodenehr after Adam Batlowsky , 1691

George Meister , spelling also Georg Meister (born October 15, 1653 in Brücken ; † May 15, 1713 in Dresden ) was a royal court gardener and botanist at the Electoral Saxon Court in Dresden. He can be considered the first European specialist in horticulture in East Asia. In the years 1677 to 1688 he reached Indonesia and Japan, among others . He wrote a report on the studies he carried out during these years, which he self- published in 1692 under the title The Oriental-Indian Art and Pleasure Gardener in Dresden . This is not a travel description, as is often wrongly assumed. Notes on his travels are only intended to better explain his studies. Master already refers to this in the preface of his pleasure gardener . In this, in addition to other plant and tree species, the camellia is described for the first time in Europe .

Life

During his time in East Asia, Meister primarily hired himself as a gardener for Andreas Cleyer , a physician, pharmacist, botanist, businessman and traveler who came from Kassel . Cleyer worked for the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and was in charge of the fortress pharmacy in Batavia (now Jakarta ) from 1667 . In 1678, Meister joined his gardener and, among other things, set up a tree nursery for him . When Cleyer was “opperhoofd” (head) of the VOC branch on the artificial island of Dejima in the bay of Nagasaki in 1682/83 and 1685/86 , Meister accompanied him to Japan - in the second cycle with the rank of court master . In 1688 he returned to Europe for religious reasons. From 1689 he worked as a royal court gardener in Dresden, where he initially looked after the garden at Pirnaischer Tor and later the Zwingergarten .

In 1691 he married the pastor's daughter Regina Elisabeth Niedtner. The connection resulted in two sons and a daughter. Meister died in Dresden and was buried in the Johanniskirchhof . His grave has not been preserved.

plant

In his report Der oriental-Indianische Kunst- und Lust-Gärtner , self-published in 1692 by Johan Riedel in Dresden, Meister describes a number of Japanese and Southeast Asian plants, including the Japanese camellia ( Camellia japonica ) as the first European and after Cleyer the second European Japanese bonsai :

“Arbor Zuwacky or Sasanqua in Chinese. Is a small tree, 6 to 8 feet tall, with thick, stiff leaves that are notched all around, like pear tree leaves. Its flowers are red like Malva hortensis, simple and double. When they bloom for six days, they fall off and produce a black seed like tea seed. The branches are ash-gray, spreading from their roots. From the dried seeds they chop off an oil with which, because of the good smell, the Japponian women smear their long black hair ... The leaves fall off and come back with their blossoms in spring. "

“In the large, round stones and cliffs they have round or elongated holes a foot deep, which they fill with earth and then plant small trees in them according to their kind, some of which bear fruit, but most of them bear all kinds of beautiful and fragrant flowers, as well as all kinds Bulb plants, which are pretty rare and pleasant to see ... "

In his book, Meister also documents the Japanese Iroha ( Hiragana ) alphabet for the first time in Europe and also gives examples of Japanese conversation - albeit in a heavily twisted form. He was shaken by the harshness of the Japanese judiciary. His comments on this can be checked in Cleyer's service diaries at the Dejima branch. Meister also earned great merit as a bearer of seeds, drawings and other materials from Cleyer, which were sent to Nicolaes Tulp , Jakob Breyne , Christian Mentzel and other correspondents in Europe. These materials, as well as Meister's book, exerted a noticeable influence on contemporary Asian researchers such as Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede tot Draakenstein and Engelbert Kaempfer .

For the region at the Cape of Good Hope , in addition to the plant studies, his detailed description of the "Hottentots" ( Khoi Khoi ) with an illustration should be emphasized.

literature

  • F. Berger et al. W. Bonsack (Ed.): George Meister. The oriental-Indian art and pleasure gardener . Weimar 1973.
  • W. Muntschik: A manuscript by Georg Meister, the art and pleasure gardener in the British Library . In: Medizinhistorisches Journal , No. 19, 1984, Issue 3, pp. 225-232.
  • W. Michel: The Japanese studies of Georg Meister (1653-1713) . In: Dokufutsu Bungaku Kenkyû , No. 35, Fukuoka 1986, pp. 1-50 ( online as PDF (30 MB; metadata ) at the Kyushu University Institutional Repository; web version of the author ).
  • W. Kuitert: Georg Meister, A seventeenth century gardener and his reports on Oriental garden art . In: Japan Review , No. 2, Kyoto 1991, pp. 125–143 ( online as PDF )
  • W. Kuitert: Nagasaki Gardens and Georg Meister (1653-1713) . In: Genesis , No. 3, Kyoto 1997, pp. 94-102 ( online as PDF )
  • Felicitas Hoppe: Criminals and Failures. Five portraits , Hamburg 2004. [one of the five portraits included treats George Meister, the "ship gardener of God from Sonderhausen"]
  • V. Hammer: The eternal gardener. On the life of Georg Meister (1653–1713) in Dresden. In: Sudhoffs Archiv , Vol. 93/2, 2009, pp. 215–222.
  • V. Hammer: Georg Meister (1653–1713). A biographical attempt (= OAG-Taschenbuch, No. 91), Munich 2010.
  • V. Hammer: The view from the outside and European knowledge of Japan around 1700. The examples Andreas Cleyer (1634–1697 / 98) and Georg Meister (1653–1713), dissertation, Halle 2012.
  • W. Michel: "The East Indian and neighboring kingdoms, the most distinguished rarities of the brief explanation" - New finds on the life and work of the Leipzig surgeon and trader Caspar Schamberger (1623–1706). Kyushu University, The Faculty of Languages ​​and Cultures Library, No 1. Fukuoka: Hana-Shoin, 2010, pp. 61-68. ISBN 978-4-903554-71-6 ( table of contents )
  • Friedrich RatzelMaster, Georg . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1885, p. 254.

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