Heinrich Meyer (painter)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Johann Heinrich Meyer

Johann Heinrich Meyer (born March 16, 1760 in Stäfa near Zurich , † October 14, 1832 in Jena ) was a Swiss painter and art writer. The Füssli pupil went to Rome in 1784 , became Goethe's friend in 1787 , lived in Weimar from 1791 , worked there from 1806 as director of the Princely Free Drawing School and was Goethe's right-hand man in art matters. Heinrich Meyer is known as Kunschtmeyer or Goethemeyer .

Life

The 16-year-old Heinrich Meyer, son of the businessman and Zurich citizen Johann Baptist Meyer, initially took drawing lessons in his birthplace. Two years later, Johann Caspar Füssli (1707–1782), the father of Johann Heinrich Füssli , introduced him to the work of the German archaeologist and art writer Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768) in Zurich . Its history of ancient art was published in Dresden in 1764. To perpetuate the beautiful in the work of art, to depict the noble simplicity and quiet grandeur - this Winckelmann ideal shaped the young Heinrich Meyer. From then on, this ideal was the leitmotif of Heinrich Meyer's artistic endeavors and work.

In 1784 Heinrich Meyer went to Rome and got by right and wrong in the German colony. In 1786 he met Goethe in Rome; Goethe was impressed by Meyer's knowledge of the art of the ancients. In 1788 Meyer worked as a drawing teacher in Naples and made friends with the painter Tischbein (1751–1829). In Naples he met the Weimar Duchess Anna Amalia (1739–1807) and the writer Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803). On September 21, 1797 he traveled with Goethe to his birthplace Stäfa, where Goethe dealt with Meyer's Italian studies on the one hand, and the Wilhelm Tell material on the other, which he later left to Friedrich Schiller . In Venice he met Goethe again in 1790, and in 1791 he went to Weimar . Meyer stayed in the Duchy of Thuringia until the end of his life - apart from occasional trips.

He lived in Goethe's house until 1802. First, he led the renovation of the house in the classicist style. In 1795 he became a professor and in 1806 director of the Weimar Free Drawing Institute. In 1795 two years of art studies followed in Florence and Rome. In 1799 he took over the interior design management for the paintings and decorations in the Weimar City Palace. In 1798, Meyer and Goethe published the art magazine Propylaen as the successor to the Horen founded by Schiller in 1795 . Meyer already contributed artist reviews to Schiller's hearing as contributions to the history of modern art . Until 1805, Goethe and Meyer set prize tasks for visual artists in the Propylaea . Johann Gottfried Schadow (1764–1850) teased the two Weimar “art judges” from Berlin in 1801. In 1802, Meyer and Goethe were mocked by an anonymous reviewer in the Leipziger Zeitung for the elegant world , much to the anger of Goethe. In 1925 the publisher Anton Kippenberg (1874–1950) was able to de-anonymize Karoline Herder, the wife of Johann Gottfried Herder , as the reviewer. In 1806, because of the public humiliation, the award tasks were no longer set.

In January 1803 Heinrich Meyer married the Weimaran Amalie von Koppenfels, who was eleven years his junior. The couple initially lived in Jena, but returned to Weimar. The marriage remained childless and is said to have been happy. Amalie died in 1825. Meyer did not remarry.

From 1804, articles on art history appeared in the Jenaische Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung under the abbreviation WKF . Behind it stood the Weimar art lovers Goethe, Meyer, Carl Ludwig Fernow (see list of well-known art historians ) and Friedrich August Wolf . In 1805 Winckelmann and his century appeared . From 1816, when the classicist essays signed WKF appeared in Goethe's magazine Ueber Kunst und Alterthum , Heinrich Meyer was the only person behind the cipher.

In 1807 Meyer became a councilor. From 1809 to 1815 he wrote his History of Art , which appeared posthumously in 1974 . From 1824 to 1836 his three-volume History of Fine Arts among the Greeks was published in Dresden . Of course Meyer also made contributions to Goethe's large-scale theory of colors - e.g. B. on the coloring of the old painters . Goethe trusted in Meyer's judgment as an art expert.

Meyer mediated when Goethe argued with the duke about the Weimar court theater in 1808 . The friendship with Goethe lasted until Meyer's life, i.e. 45 years, perhaps also because the quiet, solitary , quiet, honest, hardworking, good (Goethe in the Italian trip ) friend always saw himself as a servant. In contrast to Eckermann , Heinrich Meyer's service had nothing to do with submission. Goethe reported to Heinrich Meyer and no one else about the completion of Faust II on the same day.

portrait

  • 1833 medal (Angelica Facius fecit) on his death. The medal shows the following life dates on the obverse: GEB. TO STÄFA, MARCH 16, 1760. GEST. TO IENA D. OCT. 11, 1832

Quotes

  • Goethe's secretary Friedrich Theodor David Kräuter (1790–1856) remembers: Councilor Meyer usually visits him in the evening, where the conversation with this staid, laconic Swiss mostly relates to art objects (Pollmer).
  • Heinrich Meyer confessed to Friedrich von Müller in conversation one of the secrets of his decades-long friendship with Goethe: But I have never presumed to want to impose my views and feelings on him [Goethe] (Grumach).
  • Goethe's letter to Johann Friedrich Reichardt dated November 17, 1791: I'm happy to see you here, and if I can't offer you any quarters right away (the Swiss Meyer , whose you remember from Venice, lives on my upper floor), by the way, you should to be received in the kindest way; I hope to find time to discuss with you the important issues of the five senses.
  • Friedrich von Müller about a conversation with Goethe and Meyer on May 10, 1819: At Goethe's, who was very cheerful, I met an interesting young American from Boston, named Coxwell, who had been traveling around Europe for three years. For a long time the conversation revolved around Lord Byron , whom Goethe declared to be the only great poet of our time. "If we were twenty years younger," said Goethe to Meyer , "we would still sail to North America."
  • Joseph Sebastian Grüner (1780–1864) on a conversation with Goethe on August 24, 1823: Councilor Meyer came in the evening . “One of my oldest friends,” said Goethe, “to whom I owe a lot in judging works of art”. Councilor Meyer , an unassuming man who betrayed the native Swiss dialect, seemed to be embarrassed at this statement by Goethe.
On the origin of the name Kunschtmeyer for Heinrich Meyer
  • Friedrich Christoph Förster (writer, historian, 1791–1868), on November 9th, 1825 at table with Goethe: You sat down at table according to the assigned seats. Mine was between Oberbaurath Coudray and Hofrath Heinrich Meyer , known by the artists under the name of Kunschtmeyer , which his Alemannic-Swiss pronunciation brought him.
  • Johann Karl Wilhelm Zahn (Berlin painter, art historian and architect, 1800–1871), at Goethe's table in September 1827: Riemer represented philology, Meyer art history and Eckermann unfolded as an endless tangle of cites for any subject. In between he listened with drawn breath to the words of the master, which he seemed to learn by heart at once, like oracles. Meyer, on the other hand, who was called Kunschtmeyer because of his Swiss dialect , lingered on the face of his old childhood friend with moving looks that expressed as much tenderness as admiration. The conversation lingered particularly on Italy and its art treasures.

literature

Sorted by year of publication:

  • Carl Brun :  Meyer, Heinrich (art writer) . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1885, pp. 591-594.
  • Arthur Pollmer: From the estate of Friedrich Theodor herbs. In: Yearbook of the Kippenberg Collection. II, Leipzig 1922, p. 214 ff.
  • Renate Grumach (ed.): Chancellor Friedrich von Müller: Conversations with Goethe. Weimar 1982, p. 143.
  • Eberhard Anger (editor): Der Kunst-Brockhaus . Updated paperback edition in ten volumes. Vol. 6. Mannheim 1987, ISBN 3-411-02936-6 , p. 314.
  • Choung-Hi Lee-Kuhn:  Meyer, Heinrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , pp. 347-349 ( digitized version ).
  • Gero von Wilpert : Goethe-Lexikon (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 407). Kröner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-520-40701-9 , pp. 701 f.
  • Jochen Klauß: The 'Kunschtmeyer'. Johann Heinrich Meyer: friend and oracle of Goethe. Weimar 2001, ISBN 3-7400-1114-9 .
  • Rolf Bothe, Ulrich Haussmann (ed.): Goethe's "Picture Gallery". The beginnings of the Weimar art collections . G-und-H-Verlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-931768-66-X . (In the field of vision of the Goethe era; special volume. Sandstein, Dresden and G-und-H Verlag Berlin).
  • Alexander Rosenbaum, Johannes Rößler, Harald Tausch (Eds.): Johann Heinrich Meyer. Art and knowledge in classic Weimar. (= Aesthetics around 1800. 9). Wallstein, Göttingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-8353-0515-1 . Conference proceedings.

Web links

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

Footnotes

  1. ^ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Works, Hamburg Edition, Timeline, Volume XIV p. 449
  2. ↑ For example, in 1802 Ludwig Hummel and Johann Martin von Rohden , both from Kassel , won the award on the given topic " Perseus frees Andromeda ". 26 artists and art lovers took part.
personal data
SURNAME Meyer, Heinrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meyer, Johann Heinrich (full name); Kunschtmeyer; Goethemeyer
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss painter and art writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 16, 1760
PLACE OF BIRTH Stäfa near Zurich
DATE OF DEATH October 14, 1832
Place of death Jena