Heinrich Leibnitz

Self-Portrait (1841)

Heinrich Leibnitz (born October 13, 1811 in Stuttgart , † January 6, 1889 in Tübingen ) was a German draftsman and painter . He was a university drawing teacher and later professor for art history at the University of Tübingen .

Heinrich Leibnitz: Johann Gottlieb Bohnenberger (oil on canvas, 1844)

Heinrich Leibnitz: Ferdinand Gottlieb Gmelin (oil on canvas, 1845)

H. Leibnitz: For the inauguration of the New Aula in Tübingen on October 31, 1845 (lithograph)

Bebenhausen monastery , monastery church (illustration from The Art of the Middle Ages in Swabia , 6th delivery, Stuttgart 1858, panel XVIII)

Bebenhausen Monastery (panel XIX with an illustration by Heinrich Leibnitz from the book The Art of the Middle Ages in Swabia , 1858)

Architectural details of the Bebenhausen monastery (illustration by Heinrich Leibnitz from the book Die Kunst des Mittelalters in Schwaben , 1858)

Life

youth

Heinrich Leibnitz apparently enjoyed an artistic education since his childhood - with whom is not known. From the earliest times are z. B. - still somewhat awkward - portraits of his parents, which he painted when he was seventeen. Since November 21, 1828 he was matriculated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich , where he met Anton Duttenhofer , who was almost the same age . From 1834 he continued his studies in Paris . He dealt with both painting practice and art history. In the years 1837–1840 Leibnitz stayed in Italy, where he studied the works of old masters, especially those by Raphael . He was probably in contact with the Nazarenes , as religious works are known from him that are reminiscent of the romantic-religious paintings of Friedrich Overbeck and his comrades. In 1840 Leibnitz first returned to Stuttgart. In 1841 after the death of Christoph Friedrich Dörr , he successfully applied for the position of university drawing teacher in Tübingen on April 12th as his successor. In the first years of this activity, Ludwig August Helvig was at his side as a second drawing teacher. His duties included teaching drawing and painting to those students who needed them to illustrate their research. In addition to this activity, he painted portraits and made a number of landscape drawings in the early years. At the beginning of his activity in Tübingen he created a “wonderful self-portrait full of life and painterly feeling”. His extremely well-groomed demeanor and his looseness in his brushwork were novel within Württemberg art. Leibnitz made four portraits of Tübingen professors from the 1840s.

University drawing teacher

Leibnitz took over the field of activity from Dörr in his drawing lessons and he continued it in the same way until 1844. Then he tried to upgrade the teaching and improve the position of the drawing institute. He began to redesign the drawing lessons first: it should be less practical in art and more into an artistic and creative instruction. Leibnitz 'goal was to train the students' perception in addition to manual skills. In 1847 he also began to give lectures on art history topics. He also dealt in depth with architectural history topics. In 1848 he tried to improve his position and to become a private lecturer. His request in this regard was granted on the condition that he first had to write a theoretical treatise. He submitted his dissertation on August 22, 1848, which, incidentally, was published in a slightly different form just one year later. He did not paint in the following years. Fleischhauer claims that Leibnitz felt unhappy in Tübingen in the "small circumstances", soon gave up portraying and devoted himself entirely to teaching and theoretical art observation. By 1858 Leibnitz wrote several art historical studies, which he illustrated himself if necessary. Since the winter semester of 1855 he has not given any more lectures - the reasons for this are not known - but in 1861 he tried to take over the management of the drawing institute and place it under the care of the philosophical faculty, which he succeeded. Through his publications and expansion of the teaching as well as better position he gained attention at other German universities. In the same year he was appointed drawing teacher and associate professor at the University of Kiel . However, he did not accept the call because the University of Tübingen also awarded him the title of Associate Professor of Art History. He held the position of drawing teacher until his retirement, which took place at his own request from the winter semester of 1879. Leibnitz lived in Tübingen until the end of his life.

Heinrich Leibnitz's artistic oeuvre is rather small, but varied: he painted genre pictures , landscapes , religious paintings and portraits , made chalk drawings and lithographs . Most of his works are scattered among private owners and therefore a complete stylistic assessment of his oeuvre is not possible. One can assume that he combined different styles in it. The religious paintings, for example, can be assigned to the Romantic period , while the works from the period in Paris are classicist .

criticism

Leibnitz 'early works - both the portraits and the landscape drawings - document his sense of clarity in the picture structure. He is as advanced as Karl Kurtz (1817–1887) and Karl Müller (1813–1881), he even goes beyond their drawing style to coloristic painting, but without indulging in the “dazzling play of colors” of the Belgian painting school under their influence then all of Europe stood. In these very picturesque pictures he remains dominated by the style of French classical art. His earlier portraits (from the time before he became a university drawing teacher) are characterized by a “beautiful, soft shape”. His later professor portraits have mostly lost these charms. But the classic training can still be felt under the stiff posture, and the facial expression still exudes a certain strength.

Well-known works (selection)

Portraits

• 1841 self-portrait (oil on canvas 44 × 35 cm)

Portraits in the Tübingen professors' gallery

• 1844 Johann Gottlieb Friedrich von Bohnenberger (1765–1831) (oil on canvas 72.5 × 59.5 cm)
• 1844 Theophil Christian Storr (1746–1805) (oil on canvas 72.5 × 59.5 cm)
• 1844 Karl Georg Wächter (1797–1880) (oil on canvas 73 × 59.5 cm)
• 1845 Ferdinand Gottlieb Gmelin (1782–1848) (oil on canvas 73 × 59.5 cm)

Others

• 1845 For the inauguration of the new auditorium in Tübingen on October 31, 1845 (lithograph printed by Gottfried Küstner , 53.5 × 42 cm; Tübingen City Museum )

Art historical writings

• 1849 The structural element of architecture and its relationship to the art form. A contribution to the comparative history of architecture [revised doctoral thesis], Ludw. Friedr. Fues: Tübingen
• 1855 The organization of the vaults in Christian church building. An art-historical study , Weigel: Leipzig
• 1856 The Roman baths near Badenweiler in the Black Forest: taken from nature and explained in the summer of 1855 with consideration of earlier editions , Weigel: Leipzig (with lithographs)
• 1858 The Cistercian Abbey of Bebenhausen in Schönbuch , In: The Art of the Middle Ages in Swabia , Ebner & Seubert: Stuttgart (format 25 × 32.5 cm; with lithographs)
• 1858 Medieval monuments from Swabia. The Bebenhausen Cistercian Abbey in Schönbuch. Supplement to the work The Art of the Middle Ages in Swabia , Ebner & Seubert: Stuttgart (format 33 × 55.5 cm; with lithographs)

bibliography

• Annika Kiesewetter: Leibnitz, Heinrich. In: Bénédicte Savoy and France Nerlich (eds.): Paris apprenticeship years. A lexicon for training German painters in the French capital. Volume 1: 1793-1843. Berlin / Boston 2013, pp. 174–176.
• Franziska Boll: Heinrich Leibnitz. In: Evamarie Blattner, Wiebke Ratzeburg, Ernst Seidl (eds.): Artists for students. Pictures of the university drawing teachers 1780–2012. Stadtmuseum Tübingen 2012 (= Tübingen catalogs. No. 94), ISBN 978-3-941818-13-2 , pp. 80–85.
• Elke Schulze: Nulla dies sine linea. University drawing lessons - a problem history study. Stuttgart 2004.
• Werner Fleischhauer : The portrait in Württemberg 1760-1860. History, artists and culture. Metzler, Stuttgart 1939.
• Leibnitz, Heinrich . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 22 : Krügner – Leitch . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1928, p. 589 .
• Otto Fischer : Swabian painting of the nineteenth century. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart / Berlin / Leipzig 1925, pp. 55–56.
• Wilhelm Triebold: Tübingen University Draftsman (4): Heinrich Leibnitz. In: Schwäbisches Tageblatt. August 15, 2012 ( tagblatt.de ).

Web links

Commons : Heinrich Leibnitz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Museum of the University of Tübingen: painting by Heinrich Leibnitz

Notes and individual references

1. ↑ Evamarie Blattner, Karlheinz Wiegmann (Ed.): Cityscape - Worldview. Tübingen city views from the 16th to 19th centuries. Tübingen 2009, p. 259.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Werner Fleischhauer: The portrait…. P. 216
3. ^ ^{A b} Franziska Boll: Heinrich Leibnitz. P. 81.
4. ^ ^{A b} Franziska Boll: Heinrich Leibnitz. P. 84.
5. ↑ Werner Fleischhauer: The portrait…. P. 217.
6. ^ Franziska Boll: Heinrich Leibnitz. P. 85.
7. ↑ ^{a b} Werner Fleischhauer: The portrait…. P. 217.
8. ↑ Leibnitz, Heinrich . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 22 : Krügner – Leitch . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1928, p. 589 .