Gerhardt Wilhelm von Reutern

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Gerhardt Wilhelm von Reutern , painting by Theodor Hildebrandt , 1838, Russian Museum , Saint Petersburg
In the Willingshausen cemetery , oil on canvas, created in 1842

Gerhardt Wilhelm von Reutern (born July 6, jul. / 17th July  1794 greg. On Good Rösthof at Walk in Livonia ; † 22. March 1865 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a Baltic officer and painter , Goethe friend and Ludwig Emil Grimm founder the Willingshausen painters colony .

Life

Von Reutern was a member of the Baltic noble family von Reutern . He was the youngest of four sons of Chamberlain Christoph Herrmann von Reutern and his wife Charlotte (born von Fischbach). He received his first artistic instruction from a private tutor and from the age of twelve in the Petri School in Saint Petersburg . At the age of 15 he came to the university in Dorpat to study military science.

Military career

In 1811 he joined the "Alexander Hussar Regiment", which was under the command of his eldest brother. In the autumn of 1812 he became a Cornet in the Life Guard Hussar Regiment and marched in 1813 towards Silesia. As a Russian cavalry lieutenant , he took part in the Russian campaigns from 1813 to 1815 and the battles near Dresden, Culm and Leipzig . On October 16, 1813, he was critically injured in Wachau by a gunshot wound in his right shoulder, so that he could only be saved by amputating his arm. As he was beginning to recover in Leipzig, in March 1814 he made his first attempts at drawing with his left hand, which consisted of portraits that he made from nature. After making a full recovery, he wanted to continue his military career. However, a renewed inflammation of the wound forced him to stay in Weimar and wait for the healing to occur.

In the summer of 1814 he made the first acquaintance there with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , who encouraged him to paint and with whom he maintained a constant correspondence. He traveled to Baden-Baden to cure the inflammation and followed the army to Russia in the fall of that year. In early 1815 he became adjutant to Field Marshal Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly in Warsaw , whom he accompanied to Paris because Napoleon had fled from Elba. In late autumn he went on a longer home leave. Since he was of legal age (or of age), he received the Ajasch estate as a paternal inheritance. He stayed here until 1817. He spent the years 1818 and 1819 in Berlin and Kassel, where he devoted himself to scientific studies. In Kassel he made friends with Joseph von Radowitz and repeatedly met Göthe and Schiller's widow on trips to Weimar and Jena. He continued his studies of natural sciences at the University of Heidelberg until the end of 1819. He then returned to Saint Petersburg to take his leave of the army with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Artistic creation

In February 1820 he got engaged to Fraulein Charlotte von Schwertzell zu Willingshausen in Kassel and took her on a long trip to Italy before he married her on August 20 that year. At first he had the intention to cultivate the inherited property. However, his state of health did not allow this, so he turned back to the natural sciences. His doctors ordered him to stay in a milder climate in 1823, which led him to Geneva and Bad Ems. During these years he made numerous drawings with the pen and also tried his hand at etching. From 1828 he turned increasingly to watercolor painting, which he had learned from Gabriel Lory in Bern in 1824 . He then studied painting with Ludwig Emil Grimm , Justus Wilhelm Karl Glinzer and Johann Martin von Rohden at the Kassel Art Academy. Many of his watercolors were created in Willingshausen, where Ludwig Grimm visited him several times. Their acquaintance is considered to be the founding hour of the Willingshausen painters' colony. Both discovered the Schwalm genre and the Schwalm costumes for themselves . In 1833 an eye disease prevented him from working for two years and he moved to Düsseldorf in November 1834 to learn oil painting under Schadow's guidance. He soon became a student of Theodor Hildebrandt at the Düsseldorf Art Academy . In 1837 he made two of his own compositions in oil, a page in a medieval costume and a girl curiously opening a treasure chest. He sent both portraits to Emperor Nicholas I , who awarded him the title of imperial court painter and appointed him painter to the imperial Russian family with an honorary pension.

Von Reutern created the pen and ink drawing Huteeichen in 1829 , which he gave to his patron Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The drawing is now in the Weimar Goethehaus. In 1841 he brought his friend Jakob Fürchtegott Dielmann with him to Willingshausen, whose work contributed significantly to Willingshausen's status as a place of study. Von Reutern, however, lived alternately in Russia , Germany , Switzerland and Italy .

In 1844 he moved to Frankfurt, where he set up studios for painters in what he and his family lived in, later Villa Metzler . In Frankfurt, Philipp Veit was one of his friends . His grave in Frankfurt's southern cemetery no longer exists today; the grave slabs of him, his wife and his son were brought to the mourning hall. His wife died in 1854. His daughter Elisabeth von Reutern (1821–1856) married Wassili Andrejewitsch Schukowski in 1841 . His own health deteriorated noticeably. In the spring of 1864 he suffered a stroke that paralyzed him on one side. He died in March of that year.

Appreciation

Working in museums

Isaac's sacrifice

Exhibitions

literature

Web links

Commons : Gerhardt Wilhelm von Reutern  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry in the baptismal register of the Theal parish (Estonian: Sangaste kogudus)
  2. ^ Wolfgang Hütt : Die Düsseldorfer Malerschule 1819–1869. VEB EA Seemann Buch- und Kunstverlag, Leipzig 1984, p. 292.
  3. ↑ a b c d Andreas Andresen: Gerhardt v. Reuters . In: The German painter-Radirer (Peintres-Engraveurs) of the nineteenth century according to their lives and works . tape 3 . Alexander Danz, Leipzig 1872, p. 222–229 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive - detailed curriculum vitae with catalog raisonné ).
  4. ^ Gerhardt von Reutern House. willingshausen.info, accessed on February 11, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Reutern, Gerhardt Wilhelm von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Reutern, Gerhard Wilhelm von; Reutern, Gerhardt from
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Baltic officer and painter
DATE OF BIRTH July 17, 1794
PLACE OF BIRTH Gut Rösthof near Walk , Livonia
DATE OF DEATH March 22, 1865
Place of death Frankfurt am Main