Thank God Heinrich von Rapp
Gottlob Heinrich Rapp , from 1821 von Rapp , (born February 6, 1761 in Stuttgart , Duchy of Württemberg ; † March 9, 1832 in Stuttgart, Kingdom of Württemberg ) was a businessman, art lover and writer.
Life
Gottlob Heinrich Rapp was the son of a cloth merchant, attended grammar school and was chosen by his family for the trade, although he had developed an inclination for painting at an early age. On business trips and trade fairs with his father, however, the young man was able to deal with works of art, historical buildings and beautiful landscapes, as can be seen from the diaries that Gottlob Heinrich Rapp wrote during this time. After completing his apprenticeship, Rapp worked in his parents' business, but at the same time began an artistic training. In 1777 he started a book in which he collected excerpts from works of art history, and took regular drawing lessons. It is not known who was his teacher at this time. In 1783 he made a trip through the Rhineland, Belgium, Holland and France and again kept a diary, from which it emerges that he not only acquired other business skills, but also mainly art. Before a trip to Italy, which the satisfied father had promised him after this first educational trip, could start, Gottlob Heinrich Rapp's father died and the son had to take over the management together with his mother. In 1785 he married the pharmacist's daughter Friederike Eberhardine Walz. The marriage had eight children.
Contact with cultural workers
Rapp continued to draw and paint eagerly even after the takeover and was now mainly concerned with nature studies and landscape scenes. He also maintained close contact with artists from Stuttgart, including the painters Philipp Friedrich Hetsch and Adolf Friedrich Harper and the engraver Johann Gotthard Müller . After Johann Heinrich Dannecker returned from Rome in 1790 , there was lively intercourse with this sculptor and in November 1790 Dannecker Rapp's younger sister Heinrike Charlotte married. According to his student Th. Wagner, Rapp also influenced Dannecker's choice of topics: "Without his R., Dannecker would not have created an Ariadne or a (Stuttgart) group of nymphs." As a skilled businessman and art writer, he also helped him to market his work. The Rapp and Dannecker families also cultivated a mutual friendship with Schiller and Goethe . Even 20 years after Schiller's death, his widow and her children stayed in Stuttgart in the Rapp household at Stiftstrasse 6. In 1827, an association for Schiller's memorial was founded in Stuttgart , of which Rapp was a member. However, he did not live to see the statue erected in 1839.
On his return from his Swiss trip, Goethe stopped in Stuttgart in the summer of 1797 and was introduced to Rapp by a letter of recommendation from Schiller. In several diary entries and letters he gave testimony to the seven days he spent in Stuttgart and reported in a letter to Schiller on September 14, 1797: “When I noticed that my relationship with R. and Dannecker was growing was and both were not averse to some principle, which is so important to me theoretically, also from their side they told me something pleasant, good and useful, so I decided to read Hermann to them , which I then also in one Evenings accomplished. I had every reason to enjoy the effect that it produced and these hours were fruitful for all of us. ”Up until 1802 an exchange of letters between Goethe and Rapp continued.
Own writings and promotion of art
Other writers with whom Rapp associated were Stäudlin , Haug , Reinbeck and Matthison . Rapp also made his own attempts at writing. He wrote a description of the garden in Hohenheim , the first part of which appeared in 1795 in Cotta's paperback for the year 1795 for nature and garden lovers . The sequels were published in the 1796–99 years of the pocket calendar . The fragmentary articles on the aesthetic training of German gardening taste were also published there . Rapp also wrote drawings of beautiful vessels, small altars and monuments. For the use of garden ornaments. From the court sculptor Isopi . These statements were reviewed very positively by Schiller in the Allgemeine Litteraturzeitung, No. 332. The illustrations for the description of the Hohenheim Gardens were based on watercolors by Viktor Heideloff , who in turn published two volumes with colored engravings based on his pictures. They were entitled Views of the Herzogl. Württb. Landsitzes Hohenheim ( Nuremberg , Frauenholz (1795) and the strangest interior views of the buildings and garden areas in Hohenheim (three booklets fol. With a copper title, undated and J.). It can be assumed that the explanatory texts for these illustrated books are anonymous from Rapp were written.
In addition to these more scientific texts, Rapp also tried fiction , but his idylls with titles such as The Grotto or The Girl at the Source or character studies such as The Two Widows of Athens are considered less important.
But after Cotta had founded the Morgenblatt for educated classes in 1807 , from which the Kunstblatt later emerged, Rapp developed an eager and successful activity as an art writer and published articles in these papers almost every year until 1825. The subject was, for example, the works of Johann Heinrich Dannecker , Johann Gotthard Müller , Johann Friedrich Müller , Philipp Jakob Scheffauer , Gottlieb Schick , Eberhard Wächter , Gottlob Friedrich Steinkopf and Karl Jakob Theodor Leybold , all of whom were or had been based in Stuttgart, but also questions archeology or new art techniques as well as foreign art phenomena.
Rapp also worked on the Württemberg yearbooks , which Memminger had founded, and wrote, among other things, about the visits of Bertel Thorvaldsen (1819) and Lord Elgin (1820/21) to Stuttgart. He also documented the genesis of the Boisserée collection here. The aim of the contributions in the yearbooks was to encourage the king and the civil service to promote art.
In 1827, Rapp was involved in founding the Württemberg Art Association. In the first few years he was a member of the board of the administrative committee of this institution.
In 1829 the Württemberg art school was founded, of which he was a member of the first school council and whose proposals had played a role in the organization.
The art association and the art school developed quickly and successfully. With the establishment of a lithographic institute, which he had undertaken together with Cotta in 1807, however, Rapp had less success. The company dissolved again in 1810. On the new technology, Rapp wrote the text The Secret of Stone Printing in its entirety, practically and without reserve, described by a lover based on his own experience (Tübingen 1810). Also in 1807, Rapp and Cotta set up a copperplate printing shop, which was also unsuccessful. The copperplate engraving history of the grinding in Italy after its development, training and completion. Illustrated from the works of the better artists and accompanied by brief explanations and descriptions of their lives by F. and J. Riepenhausen, it did not grow beyond the scope of two booklets that appeared in 1810.
Public offices and honors
In 1792, Carl Eugen appointed Rapp as judge of the changing court, under Frederick I he led the commercial direction of the royal tobacco production company from 1808 to 1816, he led the ducal mirror factory, from 1814 he was a controller at the court bank and in 1818 King Wilhelm made him secret court and Domain Council and director of the Hofbank. In 1818 he helped set up the Württembergische Sparkasse and became one of its heads. In 1821 he received the Knight's Cross of the Württemberg Crown Order , with which the personal nobility was associated. In 1830 Rapp retired from his office
family
Gustav Schwab was the son of an older sister and thus a nephew of Gottlob Heinrich Rapp. His second son, Moritz Rapp , became a professor in Tübingen , and his daughter Mathilde married Sulpiz Boisserée . Another daughter married a son of Rapp's friend, Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg .
Portraits
The painter Hetsch , who was a friend of Rapp, created two portraits of him, one from the time of his marriage, the other shows him in later years. Dannecker designed a portrait medallion in clay that shows Rapp in old age. Dannecker, who was present at the death of his longtime friend Rapp and closed his eyes, also wrote an obituary for him, which appeared in the Schwäbisches Merkur and in the Kunstblatt. By Luise Duttenhofer a silhouette comes, the Rapp bockbeinigen Faun shows how he proclaims the glory Dannecker in the form of a statue of Christ. The Rapps house was destroyed in the Second World War.
literature
- Anna Marie Pfäfflin, Gottlob Heinrich Rapp - Goethe's 'well educated art lover' in Stuttgart 1761–1832 , Hohenheim Verlag (= publication of the city archive, volume 107) 2011, ISBN 978-3-89850-990-9
- August Wintterlin: Rapp, Gottlob Heinrich (v.) . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 27, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1888, pp. 290-294.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ New German Biography, Vol .: 9, Hess - Hüttig, Berlin, page 28.1972
- ↑ a b c d e f Thomas Borgmann, Gottlob Heinrich Rapp. Late Dignity for a Legend , Stuttgarter Zeitung, January 31, 2012
- ↑ Quoted from August Wintterlin's ADB article.
- ↑ Quoted from August Wintterlin's ADB article.
- ↑ Anna Marie Pfäfflin on the description of the garden in Hohenheim ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Royal Württemberg Court and State Handbook 1831, page 31
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Rapp, Gottlob Heinrich von |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Rapp, thank God Heinrich |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German art writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 6, 1761 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Stuttgart |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 9, 1832 |
| Place of death | Stuttgart |