Johann Georg Wille

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Portrait in oil by Jean-Baptiste Greuze from 1763

Johann Georg Wille (actually: Will ), also Jean Georges Wille , (born November 5, 1715 at the Obermühle at Dünsberg near Gießen ; † April 5, 1808 in Paris ) was a famous engraver from Germany in the 18th century who worked in France lived and also worked there as a picture dealer. Wille witnessed the period of late absolutism in the kingdom, the subsequent French Revolution and the first years of the Empire .

life and work

Childhood, apprenticeship and journeyman years

Wille was born as the son of the miller Johann Philipp Wille from Königsberg near Gießen and his wife Anna Elisabeth Zimmermann as the eldest of seven children. As a boy, the young Johann Georg, as he describes in detail in his autobiography, made chalk drawings of birds, trees and other objects, painted the faces of his classmates at school and modeled grotesque heads and masks made of clay, but he was also interested in the art in churches and for the illustrations in his father's Bible, which he imitated and supplemented with his own compositions on the drawing paper given to him by his father. He was also very interested in the flora in his area and in the healing power of herbs.

The father planned to send his talented son to university, and for a short time he was also taught arithmetic in Giessen by Professor Grollmann, but the desire to study painting remained, so that the father eventually turned him into a portrait painter gave the lesson. However, this teaching in drawing and painting turned out to be not as effective as expected, so that Wille was trained as a metal engraver and learned from gunsmith Peter Wittemann in Giessen to decorate hunting rifles with engravings. He also carried out this activity for a short time in Usingen .

1736 took place its fellows hike through Frankfurt , Worms , Frankenthal , Speyer , Landau , Wissembourg and Strasbourg to Paris . During this hike in Strasbourg, he made friends with the engraver Georg Friedrich Schmidt , who was traveling with the painter Friedrich Wilhelm Hoeder . These three artists continued the journey together and arrived in Paris at the end of July 1736.

Rise to the sought-after engraver in Paris

Wille lived in the French metropolis for several years with his friend Schmidt until he was accepted into the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture . First he decorated rifle stocks for an armorer in Paris and also engraved watch cases, but also trained in drawing and especially in engraving at the Paris Academy, where he was able to learn a lot from Schmidt, who was three years his senior. In doing so, he showed so much talent that he created 19 illustrations for the volume L'Europe illustre, contenant l'histoire abrégée des souverains, des princes, des prélats, des ministres, des grands capitaines, des magistrats, des savans for the publisher Michel Odieuvre , des artistes, & des dames célèbres en Europe , including a number of portraits of French kings, a job for which he was poorly paid. In addition to Schmidt, the engraver Jean Daullé , for whom he worked in 1742, helped to perfect Willes engraving. He also maintained friendly relations in Paris with the engraver Johann Martin Preissler , who later became the court engraver of the Danish king.

Portrait of Marguerite Élisabeth de Largillière after Nicolas de Largillière.

Willes' portraits based on paintings by Nicolas de Largillière aroused the interest of the painter Hyacinthe Rigaud , who allowed him to engrave portraits of his wife and Marshal Louis-Charles-Auguste Fouquet de Belle-Isle . With this work he made a name for himself in Paris. Further portrait engravings followed, including depictions of Frederick the Great based on paintings by Antoine Pesne . Little by little , Wille became one of the most famous engravers in Paris, praised for his precise engraving technique, and soon the most famous French painters, including Louis Tocqué , entrusted him with their portraits for engraving . But he also made engravings from pictures by older Dutch masters, including Gerard ter Borch , Gabriel Metsu , Jan van Mieris and Caspar Netscher . In addition to traditional mythological and religious motifs, these works also included genre scenes. Many of these works are among the most outstanding creations of the copperplate engraving of the 18th century.

Portrait of the Marquis de Marigny after Louis Tocqué (1755).

Since his arrival in July 1736, Wille stayed in Paris almost constantly. He had only briefly visited Germany in 1746 for some inheritance and family matters, but had returned to the French metropolis in the same year. After he had taken on French citizenship, the Académie royale awarded him the title of "Engraver du Roi" in recognition of the technical perfection of his engravings in 1755. In 1761, after submitting his portrait of the Marquis de Marigny, engraved from a painting by Tocqué, on which he had worked for six years, he became a member of the Académie royale . In addition he belonged u. a. the academies of Augsburg, Vienna, Copenhagen and Berlin. He was the court engraver of the French King Louis XV. , King of Denmark Frederick V and the Holy Roman Emperor .

Johann Georg Wille in a copper engraving by Johann Gotthard von Müller from 1776

Art trade and own copper engraving school

In addition to his artistic activity, Wille was also a successful art dealer who supplied important graphic collections throughout Europe with prints through his Parisian art dealer. His extensive correspondence also proves this brisk trading activity.

In his studio, which became the center of Parisian engraving, Wille also ran a copper engraving and drawing school, where work was primarily based on the living model (portrait, nude) and on nature (excursions with landscapes on site). There he trained his art students as well as artisans according to his own pedagogical ideas. In his "Teutsche Drawing School", founded in 1753, in which, in contrast to the strict system of rules of the French academy, each student was treated individually and encouraged within the scope of his personal abilities, but also educated spiritually and morally in the sense of the Enlightenment , between 1755 and 1790 around 70 Artists their training. A short time later, his student Jacob Matthias Schmutzer took over many of the progressive ideas that he had come to know at Wille for the training system he had designed at the drawing and engraving academy he founded in Vienna, which was later merged with the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts . Willes student Charles-Clément Bervic later became one of the leading French engravers.

In the meantime, Wille had acquired a considerable fortune through the art trade, which gave him a certain independence from commissioned works and noble patrons, but also gave him more freedom for artistic experiments. From 1761 he only wanted to work as he pleased and to turn away from pure portrait engraving.

Numerous contacts with German artists and scholars

Even if he almost never left Paris, Wille felt lifelong connected to his German homeland and maintained a lively correspondence with German-speaking scholars and artists, including Christoph Martin Wieland , Johann Joachim Winckelmann , Johann Gottfried Herder , Christian Ludwig von Hagedorn and Johann Heinrich Füssli . After his friend Georg Friedrich Schmidt had left Paris in 1744 and had become a court engraver at the Prussian court, Wille was in correspondence with him until his death in 1775. He also corresponded regularly with his former Parisian friend Johann Martin Preissler . But Wille also belonged to the German-speaking Parisian craftsmen and artists' emigrant community. Important names that attest to these connections are David Roentgen , Adam Weisweiler and Januarius Zick . When the Kant student Herder began a trip to France in May 1769, which also took him to Paris, it was Wille who introduced him to Paris society there, because hardly any other German had such an extensive network in the 18th century of contacts within the art scene of the French metropolis.

Private life

The artist's closest friend was Georg Friedrich Schmidt , with whom he shared an apartment in the French metropolis from 1736 to 1742. In their Parisian years, the two young men “couldn't get enough of each other,” as Wille wrote in his memoir. They were constantly out and about with their sketchbooks to capture the area around Paris and to sketch each other. After Schmidt left the flat share in 1742, Wille felt lonely and mourned the time he had spent with his friend. The artist also seems to have had a rather unconventional relationship with his students. In a letter from his Parisian pupil Jacob Matthias Schmutzer, it says: "I kiss my father Will, perhaps 1,000,000 meals."

Wille married Marie Louise Deforges in 1747, who died in 1785. His son Peter Alexander or Pierre-Alexandre Wille became known as a painter after his training with Jean-Baptiste Greuze and was by Louis XVI. appointed court painter, but his star, like that of his father (see below), faded after the French Revolution.

At times, the young Denis Diderot Willes was a neighbor in Paris on the Rue de l'Observance, not far from the École de médecine. The artist often borrowed books from him and thus became familiar with the ideas of the Enlightenment, which also had an impact on his teaching and other contacts. Willes house number 20 on the Quai des Augustins became the meeting point of the artistic and intellectual elite of Paris. Among the regular guests were well-known artists such as Charles-Nicolas Cochin , Claude Joseph Vernet and François Boucher . The house also served as accommodation for numerous travelers to Paris.

Late years of poverty

While his glorious rise in the ancien régime meant that he was able to amass an impressive art collection in his house, some of which he sold again in 1784 and 1786, Wille had lived in since the French Revolution , as a result of which he lost most of his possessions poor conditions. In 1793 he lost his hearing when a cannon shot was fired close to him. Napoléon Bonaparte made him Knight of the Legion of Honor . Due to the loss of his eyesight, however, he was no longer able to work artistically in his later years. He had to let himself be led on a leash by a dog and tried to sell some of his earlier engravings, but without great success, because his previous clients and collectors had financial problems similar to his after the French Revolution. According to Nagler, the artist depicted himself ironically on the title page of a collection of his engravings as a blind beggar led by a dog on a leash, as he met a formerly wealthy sponsor who also became a beggar after the French Revolution. The artist died totally impoverished in Paris in April 1808 at the age of 93.

Works

His graphics can be found in numerous graphic collections, such as

Students of Johann Georg Wille (selection)

literature

  • Charles Le Blanc: Catalog de l'œuvre de Jean Georges Wille, engraver, avec une notice biographique. Weigel, Leipzig 1847 ( digitized version ).
  • Georg Kaspar Nagler : New General Artist Lexicon or news of the life and works of painters, sculptors, builders, engravers, form cutters, lithographers, draftsmen, medalists, ivory workers, etc. Volume 21, Verlag EA Fleischmann, Munich 1851, p. 465 -496 ( digitized version ).
  • Georges Duplessis: Mémoires et journal de J.-G. Will. Engraver du Roi. D'après les manuscrits autographes de la Bibliothèque Impériale , 2 volumes, Jules Renouard, Paris 1857 (digitized volume 1 , volume 2 ).
  • The autobiography of the early years of the world-famous John George Wille, "graveur du roi". Translated from the French by Alfred Roffe. Somers Town, London 1872 ( digitized ).
  • The memoirs of the engraver Jean Georges Wille (1715–1808) translated after Georges Duplessis . German translation by Herbert Krüger and Peter Merck. In: Mitteilungen des Oberhessischer Geschichtsverein 51, 1966, pp. 36–74 ( digitized part 1 ) and 52, 1967, p. 79–130 ( digitized part 2 ).
  • Wilhelm Schmidt:  Wille, Johann Georg . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 43, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1898, pp. 257-260.
  • Wille, Johann Georg . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 36 : Wilhelmy-Zyzywi . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1947, p. 11-12 .
  • Werner R. Deusch: The engraver Johann Georg Wille and his Paris diary: a contribution to Franco-German art relations in the 18th century . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1958.
  • Wolf Erich Kellner: News from the written estate of Jean Georges Wille. In: Communications of the Upper Hessian History Association, Volume 49–50, 1965, pp. 144–184 ( digitized version ).
  • Herbert Krüger: The journeyman migration of the 'French' engraver Jean-Georges Wille from Upper Hesse via Strasbourg to Paris in 1736. In: Journal for the history of the Upper Rhine NF Volume 74, 1965, pp. 389-413.
  • Yvonne Boerlin-Brodbeck: Johann Caspar Füssli and his correspondence with Jean-Georges Wille. Marginalia on art literature and art politics in the second half of the 18th century. In: Swiss Institute for Art Research: Yearbook 1974–1977 , Zurich 1978, pp. 77–178.
  • Hein-Thomas Schulze Altcappenberg: "Le Voltaire de l'art". Johann Georg Wille (1715–1808) and his school in Paris. Studies on the history of artists and art of the Enlightenment . Lit-Verlag, Münster 1987, ISBN 3-88660-363-6 .
  • Élisabeth Décultot, Michel Espagne, Michael Werner (eds.): Wille, Johann Georg (1715–1808), correspondence . Niemeyer, Tübingen 1999.
  • Élisabeth Décultot (Ed.): Johann Georg Wille (1715-1808) et son milieu. A réseau européen de l'art au XVIIIe siècle. Actes du colloque Paris 19 and 20 janvier 2007. École du Louvre, Paris 2009, ISBN 978-2-904187-25-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Georges Duplessis (ed.): Mémoires et journal de J.-G. Will, engraver du roi . 2 volumes. Jules Renouard, Paris 1857. Volume 1, p. 1.
  2. ↑ See for the following explanations: Mémoires et journal de J.-G. Will . Volume 1, p. 2 ff.
  3. ↑ a b c Wille, Johann Georg . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 36 : Wilhelmy-Zyzywi . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1947, p. 11-12 .
  4. ↑ On this in detail Herbert Krüger: The journeyman migration of the 'French' engraver Jean-Georges Wille from Upper Hesse via Strasbourg to Paris in 1736 . In: Journal for the history of the Upper Rhine NF Volume 74, 1965, pp. 389-413.
  5. ↑ Wille reports in detail about the time they spent together in this apartment and the close friendship between the two artists in his memoirs, written in French. See Mémoires et journal de J.-G. Will, engraver du roi . Edited by Georges Duplessis. 2 volumes. Jules Renouard, Paris 1857.
  6. ↑ Élisabeth Décultot, Michel Espagne, Michael Werner (eds.): Johann Georg Wille (1715–1808), correspondence . Niemeyer, Tübingen 1999, p. 68.
  7. ↑ Hein-Thomas Schulze Altcappenberg: "Le Voltaire de l'art". Johann Georg Wille (1715–1808) and his school in Paris. Studies on the history of artists and art of the Enlightenment . Lit-Verlag, Münster 1987, p. 22.
  8. ↑ Schulze Altcappenberg: "Le Voltaire de l'art" , p. 63.
  9. ↑ Brigitte Zmölnig: "Jakob Matthias Schmutzer (1733–1811) - The landscape drawings from the Kupferstichkabinett of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna." Diploma thesis, University of Vienna 2008 , pp. 15, 20–31, 35–49, 57–64.
  10. ^ Letter to Johann Martin Usteri, June 12, 1761, quoted in Élisabeth Décultot, Michel Espagne, Michael Werner (ed.): Johann Georg Wille (1715-1808), Briefwechsel . Niemeyer, Tübingen 1999, p. 236.
  11. ↑ Harald Marx: “'What else the great Paris.' An astonishing comparison. ”In: Pierre Rosenberg: Poussin, Lorrain, Watteau, Fragonard… French masterpieces of the 17th and 18th centuries from German collections. An exhibition by the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn, the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich, the Haus der Kunst Foundation, Munich, and the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris, 2005, pp. 104–105.
  12. ↑ Yvonne Boerlin-Brodbeck: Johann Caspar Füssli, and his correspondence with Jean-Georges Wille. Marginalia on art literature and art politics in the second half of the 18th century. In: Swiss Institute for Art Research: Yearbook 1974–1977 , Zurich 1978, pp. 77–178.
  13. ^ Adelheid Voskuhl: Androids in the Enlightenment: Mechanics, Artisans, and Cultures of the Self. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2013, ISBN 0-226-03433-X , p. 107 (footnotes).
  14. ↑ Michael Zaremba: Johann Gottfried Herder: Preacher of Humanity. Böhlau-Verlag, Cologne 2002, ISBN 3-412-03402-9 , pp. 92-94.
  15. ↑ Mémoires et journal de J.-G. Will, engraver du roi . Edited by Georges Duplessis. Volume 1. Paris 1857, p. 62.
  16. ↑ Mémoires et journal de J.-G. Will . Volume 1, p. 84.
  17. ↑ Quoted in Zmölnig: "Jakob Matthias Schmutzer (1733–1811) - The landscape drawings from the Kupferstichkabinett of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna" , p. 15.
  18. ^ Genealogy by Johann Georg Wille ; Georg Kaspar Nagler : New General Artist Lexicon or news of the life and works of painters, sculptors, builders, engravers, form cutters, lithographers, draftsmen, medalists, ivory workers, etc. Volume 21, volumes, Verlag EA Fleischmann, Munich 1851, p 465-496 ( digitized version ).
  19. ^ Johanna Borek: Denis Diderot. Rowohlt, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-499-50447-2 , p. 32; Philip Nicholas Furbank: Diderot. A critical biography. Secker & Warburg, London 1992, ISBN 0-436-16853-7 , pp. 13-14.
  20. ↑ Herbert Krüger: For the 250th birthday of the French engraver Jean Georges Wille, the miller's son from Upper Hesse. In: Communications of the Upper Hessian History Association, Volume 49-50, 1965, p. 201.
  21. ↑ Wille, Johann Georg . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 36 : Wilhelmy-Zyzywi . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1947, p. 11-12 . .
  22. ^ Georg Kaspar Nagler: New General Artist Lexicon or News of the Life and Works of Painters, Sculptors, Builders, Engravers, Form Cutters, Lithographers, Draftsmen, Medalists, Ivory Workers, etc. Volume 21, Volumes, Verlag EA Fleischmann, Munich 1851, Pp. 465–496 ( digitized version )
  23. ↑ Portrait graphics from the collections of various Trier institutions. Most of the pictures come from the portrait collection of the Trier City Library.
  24. ↑ Georg Kaspar Nagler: Neues Allgemeine Künstler-Lexicon , Volume 24, Schwarzenberg & Schumann, Leipzig, undated, p. 68. ( online )
  25. ↑ Reviews: Christoph Frank: "Nobody in the world wants more than I ..." In: The Eighteenth Century. Journal of the German Society for Research in the Eighteenth Century Volume 26/1, 2002, p. 107ff. ; Jörn Steigerwald, In: Athenaeum. Yearbook of the Friedrich Schlegel Society, issue 10, 2000, pp. 256-259 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Johann Georg Wille  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Wille, Johann Georg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Will, Jean Georges
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German engraver in Paris
DATE OF BIRTH November 5, 1715
PLACE OF BIRTH Obermühle on Dimsberg near Giessen
DATE OF DEATH April 5, 1808
Place of death Paris