Jakob and Wilhelm Scheiner
Jakob Scheiner (born February 22, 1820 in Sohlbach (Siegen) ; † December 8, 1911 in Potsdam ) and his son Wilhelm Scheiner (born July 2, 1852 in Siegen ; † November 6, 1922 in Cologne-Deutz ) were German painters . Both painters documented the development of the city of Cologne around the turn of the century in pictures and photos.
Jakob Scheiner
Jakob Scheiner was born in Sohlbach near Siegen in 1820, grew up in Kreuztal-Ferndorf and began his artistic training as an autodidact and in private lessons. From 1835 to 1838 he worked as a draftsman in the surveying office of the land registry office , took a job as a lithographer in Siegen in 1840 and later went to Berlin and Copenhagen for some time. In 1845 he founded the J. Scheiner & Co. lithographic establishment in Siegen, which he gave up again in 1854. In the same year he moved to Cologne, where two years later he found a job with the Cologne-Mindener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft . In 1872 he started his own business as a freelance artist.
Later he worked with his son Wilhelm as a painter in Cologne-Deutz. Without any specific artistic training, he developed from a technical draftsman and graphic artist to a well-known painter, whose works were also shown at world exhibitions in Paris and Vienna. Jakob Scheiner died in Potsdam in 1911.
Wilhelm Scheiner
Wilhelm Scheiner was born in Siegen in 1852. He completed his secondary school education in 1870 with the secondary school certificate in Cologne Kreuzgasse, then attended the Polytechnic in Aachen to study mechanical engineering , but switched to chemistry and metallurgy after two semesters . After completing his studies, he worked in various ironworks until 1881. He gave up his job for health reasons and moved to Cologne with his parents.
At the age of thirty he started his apprenticeship with his father, where he became a partner of his freelance father and devoted himself to the performing arts, architecture and urban photography. In contrast to Jakob Scheiner, who approached his pictures more graphically, Wilhelm Scheiner introduced photography , which he used as templates for his pictures. In the studio, the photographic projection took place with the help of a self-constructed enlarger on canvas or watercolor cardboard, on which he then fixed the contours with a pencil. Numerous contemporary photographs of the city of Cologne have been preserved by him.
Wilhelm Scheiner was not very sociable and appeared solitary, remained unmarried and after the death of his father lived alone in his parents' apartment in Deutz, where he died in 1922.
The house of the artists in Deutz
The listed building is located at Adolphstraße 24 in Cologne-Deutz. Hardly noticed by the public nowadays, from 1872 onwards there was the studio of the urban, landscape and architectural painter Jakob Scheiner, who formed a studio community with his son Wilhelm from 1883. In 2018, in memory of the two painters, “deutzkultur e. V. “a memorial plaque was attached.
The artistic activity
Both were so-called commissioned artists who made artistic products for interested parties in close consultation. In addition to perspective pictorial representations, projects of all kinds were offered in different views, illustrations, city views, diplomas, etc. All representations were produced in different techniques, in color, water or oil paints and sepia and in different sizes. Her artistic fields of activity were first in Siegen and the region, later in the Cologne area.
The two painters sought inspiration and motifs for their visual works primarily in Cologne's city center, the suburbs, on the city wall, at the port, on traffic routes and industrial facilities that give an insight into the cityscape of Cologne in the 19th century. The pictures from their production were valued and easily found buyers. Even the emperor was one of the admirers, and Jakob Scheiner was accordingly awarded medals and exhibitions.
The Cologne bird charts
The Cologne bird charts from 1886 and 1896 are among the most outstanding works by Jakob Scheiner and show the most important developments in the city of Cologne at the end of the 19th century. The large Cologne panorama picture from 1886 - formerly shown in the Cologne City Museum - shows how the city is pushing its limits and doubling in size. The city view by Jakob Scheiner shows Cologne in 1886 from the southwest and is quite large for a watercolor with the dimensions 107 × 208 cm. It was commissioned by the city in 1866 and records the early phase of urban expansion and the new town complex under the town planner H. J. Stübben . In addition to the actual inventory, the picture also shows projects that were partially not carried out. Jakob Scheiner worked for a long time on this diagram. Floor plans of the city, on which the building outlines were projected, served as the basis. Jakob Scheiner's knowledge of cartography from previous activities was beneficial for this work .
The bird chart 1896 is more or less the counterpart to the picture from 1886. In the same format as the earlier work it shows exactly 10 years later the same perspective of Cologne. You can see how the development of the Neustadt area is now very advanced and the suburbs, especially the Kalk industrial area, are expanding. The Thürmchenshafen is disappearing, and in the Rheinauhafen you can now see several warehouses. The new port facilities and the new ship bridge in Mülheim have already been drawn. You can also see lively traffic on the Rhine. This picture seems a bit stricter than the previous one and it is assumed that the son Wilhelm Scheiner, who preferred a more technical style of painting, collaborated.
Rhine panoramas before and after 1900
Since the two painters lived and worked in Cologne-Deutz, it was a matter of course for them to include this district in their artistic work. Several Rhine panoramas from different epochs were created, showing the changes in the Deutz townscape. A panorama of the Rhine painted in 1895 shows a precise picture of the Deutz bank as it was in 1882, before the railway tracks, the railway bridge and the station of the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft were laid there.
A similar panorama by Wilhelm Scheiner, created around 1900, shows the view from the Cologne shore of the ship bridge and the Deutz Ufer. On the right you can see the neo-Romanesque church of Neu St. Heribert (1891–1896), which had only just been completed when the watercolor was created. The Deutz ship bridge from 1822 has just been opened for shipping, above which the cross bar of the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn station comes into view, which literally cuts off the Deutz district from the banks of the Rhine. The elongated building of the Deutz cavalry barracks forms the end of the panorama section on the left.
The two painters found further inspiration for their pictures in the following motifs: expansion of the Deutz harbor, demolition of the Prinz Carl inn, construction work on the railway systems on the banks of the Rhine, "Schiffsbrücke" station for the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn, Deutz fair and Deutz large companies.
Artistic style and work
Jakob and Wilhelm Scheiner hardly differ in their painting style. While Jakob Scheiner preferred a rather lighter manner, the pictures of his son seem a bit cooler. Perhaps this is due, among other things, to the fact that Jakob Scheiner freely pre-sketched his pictures, but Wilhelm Scheiner liked to use photos as the basis for his works. Both painters preferred the technique of watercolors. But they also used more modern techniques of documentary visual art, such as Jakob Scheiner for lithography and wood engraving illustrations for newspapers and Wilhelm Scheiner for photography. The pictures are characterized by the accurate and detailed representation of the subjects.
Jakob and Wilhelm Scheiner are seen as outstanding pictorial chroniclers of the time of change in the 19th and 20th centuries, which on the one hand meant the end of the medieval character of the city of Cologne, on the other hand opened the way to the modern metropolis.
Exhibitions
- 1867: Paris, World Exhibition , Jakob Scheiner
- 1873: Vienna, World Exhibition , Jakob Scheiner
- 1923: Cologne Arts and Crafts Museum, large commemorative exhibition by Jakob and Wilhelm Scheiner
- 1978: Cologne City Museum, Jakob and Wilhelm Scheiner, pictures of Cologne's urban development between 1872 and 1922
- 2015: Cologne City Museum, Wilhelm Scheiner as photographer, Cologne unadorned
- 2018: Deutzer Bürgerzentrum, selected Deutz motifs, Jakob and Wilhelm Scheiner
literature
- Hugo Borger, Heiko Steuer (eds.): Catalog exhibition: Jakob and Wilhelm Scheiner, pictures of Cologne's urban development between 1872 and 1922, Cologne 1980
- Wolfram Erber: Edition deutzkultur, Alt-Deutz in pictures by the painters Jakob and Wilhelm Scheiner, views of Cologne-Deutz from the turn of the century, Cologne 2018
- Wolfram Erber: Witnesses of Cologne's urban change , the painters Jakob and Wilhelm Scheiner, in: Draußenseiter , Das Kölner Straßenmagazin, No. 187, Cologne, April 2018
- Gabi Steinebach: The image of the city in the work of Jakob and Wilhelm Scheiner. A contribution to the art and cultural history of the Rhine and Siegerland in the 19th century. Dortmund 1992 Bonn, Univ., Diss., 1991
- Paul Steinebach: Jakob and Wilhelm Scheiner, city painter and city draftsman, landscape and architecture painter - Cologne - Siegen and Siegerland, Siegen 1986
- Rita Wagner, Mario Kramp: Cologne unadorned, Wilhelm Scheiner (1852–1922) as photographer, Mainz 2015
- Uwe Westfehling: Cologne at the turn of the century, in pictures by Jakob and Wilhelm Scheiner, Cologne 1979
Individual evidence
- ^ Westfehling, Uwe. Scheiner, Jakob, 1820–1911. Scheiner, Wilhelm, 1853–1922 .: Cologne around the turn of the century in pictures by Jakob and Wilhelm Scheiner . Bachem, 1979, ISBN 3-7616-0509-9 .
- ↑ Steinebach, Paul .: Jakob and Wilhelm Scheiner: city painter and city draftsman, landscape and architecture painter Cologne, Siegen and Siegerland . Vorländer, 1986, OCLC 22113212 .
- ^ Wagner, Rita .: Cologne unadorned: Wilhelm Scheiner (1852–1922) as photographer: Accompanying volume for the exhibition in the Cologne City Museum from November 21, 2015 to April 24, 2016 . Cologne City Museum, 2015, ISBN 978-3-945751-29-9 .
- ↑ Alt-Deutz in pictures. deutzkultur e. V., accessed on July 26, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Gabi Steinebach: Gabi Steinebach: The image of the city in the work of Jakob and Wilhelm Scheiner. A contribution to the art and cultural history of the Rhine and Siegerland in the 19th century. Dortmund 1992 Bonn, Univ., Diss., 1991 .