Johann Georg Primavesi

Johann Georg Primavesi (* 1774 in Heidelberg ; † January 16, 1855 in Kassel ) was a German theater and landscape painter .

life and work

Primavesi came from an Italian artist and merchant family and grew up in Heidelberg. 1801/1802 he stayed in Frankfurt am Main , where he copied various paintings from private collections in copper engravings on behalf of an art dealer . From 1807 he worked as a theater painter at the Mannheim court theater . The work there was interrupted by a trip to Switzerland, on which he made the drawing work "The Rhine River" with views of the river from its sources to Chur . After his return to Mannheim he tried to get a job at the court theater in Darmstadt , where he hoped for better pay and a better equipped theater. On January 1, 1812, he received the position in Darmstadt and in the following years also turned down job offers from Stuttgart and Berlin. However, he was still in economic hardship, which was increased by the fire in his house in 1817; At times his wife and two children had to stay with relatives in Heidelberg. During his time in Darmstadt, he was in contact with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , who was primarily addressed by Primavesi's views of the Rhine. In 1822 he then switched to the Elector of Hesse-Kassel as court painter , where he remained until the end of his life. In 1855 he died of old age in Kassel.

He created numerous sets and brochures for the theater in which he tried to imitate natural light and space conditions in a deceptively real manner. In addition, etchings and watercolors with landscape motifs have been preserved. Many of his works are unknown today. In addition, he wrote a libretto about the pagan seer Jetta, the content of which takes up a legend from his Heidelberg home about the Wolfsbrunnen there and is based on Amalie von Imhoff's fairy tale "The Sage of the Wolfsbrunnen". However, the text remained unprinted and, as far as known, has not been preserved.

Primavesi was married to Charlotte Beck, the daughter of a conductor from Bockenheim. With her he had two sons, Eduard and Wilhelm Julius, and a daughter, Ida, all three of whom were born during his time in Mannheim. His son Eduard Primavesi († 1866), who also worked in Rome in 1836, supported his father as a court theater painter in Kassel from 1824 and finally took over his position.

Web links

• Short biography at the Kurpfälzisches Museum in Heidelberg

literature

• Walter Gunzert: The theater painter Primavesi. In: Karl Schwingel (Ed.): Festschrift for Karl Lohmeyer. West-Ost-Verlag, Saarbrücken 1954, pp. 229–241.