Johann August Nahl the Elder

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Johann August Nahl the Elder ( Jakob Emanuel Handmann , 1755)
Monument to Friedrich II in Kassel, completed by Nahl's son in 1783

Johann August Nahl , named because of his son of the same name Johann August Nahl the Elder (born August 22, 1710 in Berlin , † October 22, 1781 in Kassel ) was a German sculptor and plasterer . He was one of the most important artists of the Frederician Rococo .

Life

Origin, education

Johann August came from a family of artists . His father, Johann Samuel Nahl (1664–1727), was court sculptor Friedrich I of Prussia in Berlin from 1704 , his mother Eva Maria (née Borsch) the daughter of a Berlin gold worker. Johann August probably received his first training from his father. After his death, the 18-year-old went on a journeyman's trip in 1728/1729 to Sigmaringen , Bern and Strasbourg . From 1731 to 1734 he studied the works of the famous French ornamentalists in Paris . A subsequent trip through Italy took him to Rome , Florence , Genoa , Bologna , Venice and Naples in 1734 and to Schaffhausen in 1735 .

Strasbourg bishop's residence Palais des Rohan

Strasbourg

In 1736 Nahl married Anna Maria Gütig, the daughter of the stone mason and Strasbourg mayor, in Strasbourg and was granted citizenship . First he worked for the royal French governor François Klinglin and then under Robert Le Lorrain at the bishop's palace of Cardinal Armand-Gaston de Rohan-Soubise , today's Palais Rohan .

Berlin

From 1740 to 1746 Nahl took part in the interior design of the new palaces built for Frederick the Great in Berlin and Potsdam . In 1745 he was given the position of Surintendent des Ornements . At that time, the famous architect Wenzelslaus von Knobelsdorff , as general intendent, was in charge of all royal buildings. In the summer of 1746 he fell out with Friedrich II and Johann August Nahl was supposed to take over his position. However, due to overwork, unpaid bills and billeting of soldiers in his house and workshop, he saw no basis for a promising activity and secretly left Prussia in the same year and fled via Dresden , Bayreuth and Nuremberg to Strasbourg to his wife's relatives. Frederick the Great had him tracked down, which led to his arrest in Strasbourg. The citizenship acquired there in 1736 saved him from extradition to Berlin.

Bern

He came to Switzerland via Strasbourg and bought the "zur Tanne" estate in Zollikofen near Bern, which had been sold around 1970. Thanks to good commissions, he led a full, intensive artistic life there for 9 years. His two sons, who later made a name for themselves as sculptors and painters, were born here.

kassel

In 1755, Landgrave Wilhelm VIII of Hesse called him to his court in Kassel and commissioned him to help design the park and Wilhelmsthal Palace . In 1767 he became a professor of sculpture at the Collegium Carolinum and 10 years later received the same function at the newly founded Art Academy in Kassel . In 2017, the Friedrich II monument in Kassel was elevated to a work of art at documenta 14 .

Descendants

Nahl had a number of children , but most of them did not reach adulthood.
The son Johann Samuel Nahl the Younger (born 1748) became an artist and taught as a professor at the Academy in Kassel.
The son Johann August Nahl the Younger (born 1752) was the 1801 laureate of the Weimar Prize tasks announced by Goethe .

Works
“Resurrection Tomb” of Maria Magdalena Langhans, 1751

The grave slab created by Nahl for the parish priest Maria Magdalena Langhans in the Hindelbank church in the canton of Bern was one of the most admired works of art in Europe in the 18th century. Johann Wolfgang Goethe wrote about this to Charlotte von Stein on October 20, 1779 :

“ To hear about the tomb of the parish in Hindelbanck you will have to be patient, because I have many things to say about it and about it. It is a text about which a long chapter can be read. I wish I could write everything down immediately. I've heard so much about it and booked everything pour ainsi dire. One speaks of such things with a constant enthusiasm, and nobody sees what the artist has done, what he wanted to do. "

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Monument to Landgrave Friedrich II of Hessen-Kassel

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c see Eduard M. Fallet: The sculptor Johann August Nahl the Elder: his Bernese years from 1746 to 1755
  2. ↑ a b c see Katharina Blohm: Nahl, Johann August der Aeltere.

Web links

Commons : Johann August Nahl the Elder  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Nahl, Johann August the Elder
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nahl, Johann August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sculptor and plasterer
DATE OF BIRTH August 22, 1710
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH October 22, 1781
Place of death kassel