Johann Köler

Johann Köler: Self-Portrait (1859)

Johann Köler (born March 8, 1826 in Vastsemõisa , today the municipality of Suure-Jaani , Livonia Governorate , today Estonia , † April 22, 1899 in Saint Petersburg ) was an Estonian painter. He is considered to be the first professional Estonian painter.

life and work

Johann Köler was born as the seventh child into a rural family. Despite the poverty of the parents, they gave the boy the best possible education. He first attended elementary school, then the district school in Viljandi . He then went on to do an apprenticeship in the workshop of the master painter Faber in Cesis ( Livonia ).

In 1846 Köler moved to Saint Petersburg as a sign painter , where his talent was soon discovered. From 1848 to 1855, Johan Köler first studied drawing and later painting at the Petersburg Art Academy . For his thesis, a mythological oil painting about Heracles and Kerberos , he was awarded the Small Gold Medal.

From 1857 onwards, Köler completed his skills abroad. He went first via Berlin to Paris , later to Germany , the Netherlands and Belgium . In 1858 he traveled across the Alps to Milan , Geneva , Florence and Rome . There he worked in a private academy and devoted himself to the watercolor technique . In 1859 he presented his composition Christ on the Cross in Rome and became a member of the "Colonna", the German artists' association in Rome, from which he received numerous impulses.

In 1861 Köler received a call from the Petersburg Academy of Art. The following year he returned to Saint Petersburg. From 1862 to 1874 he was the teacher of Grand Duchess Maria Aleksandrovna , the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. In 1869/70 he worked as a lecturer at the St. Petersburg Academy of Art. In 1867 he was awarded the title of Professor of History and Portrait Painting for a portrait of State Chancellor Gorchakov .

From 1886 to 1889, Johan Köler worked in Vienna , Nice and Paris . He distinguished himself primarily through his skillful portraits, but also impressed with his landscape paintings . Some of his best pictures depict Estonian country life in the second half of the 19th century.

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  Italian woman with children by the river , 1862

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National awakening of the Estonians

Johann Köler consciously saw himself as a painter of Estonian origin. From 1863 he took part in intellectual discussions in Saint Petersburg and in Estonian-minded circles in the Estonian national awakening. There he also made friends with the publicist Carl Robert Jakobson , one of the pioneers of the Estonian idea of ​​sovereignty.

From 1891 to 1893 Köler was President of the Estonian Literary Association ( Eesti Kirjameeste Selts ). After that he withdrew more and more from public life. Johann Köler is buried today in the Suure-Jaani cemetery.

aftermath

In 1976 a monument to Johann Köler was inaugurated on the town square of Viljandi .

literature

• Kersti Lust: Johann Köler (1826-1899), a pioneer of the Estonian national movement in the 19th century, pp. 193-216 in: Norbert Angermann, Wilhelm Lenz, Konrad Maier (eds.): Humanities and journalism in the 19th and early Baltic states 20th century . Münster, LIT Verlag, 2011. (Writings of the Baltic Historical Commission; Vol. 17), ISBN 978-3-643-11224-8

Web links

Commons : Johann Köler  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Detailed biography (Estonian)
• Johan Köler exhibition in Tallinn (cultural newspaper Sirp , April 27, 2001)
• Postage stamp for Johann Koeler's 175th birthday (Estonian Post)