Johann Martin Morat

Johann Martin Morat (born November 3, 1805 in Stühlingen ; † May 1, 1867 in Stühlingen) was a German painter and lithographer .

Johann Martin Morat: Zell im Wiesental

Family and person

Johann Martin Morat comes from a family of artists who lived in Stühlingen for several generations. From his grandfather Johann Baptist Morath (1732-1779), who as a church painter has worked, is little known, even by his father Joseph Anton Morath (1761-1831), who also worked as church painter and also as "Art and Faßmaler " in Little is known about the appearance. Portraits by his hand are also known, as are some local views and landscapes, which the son obviously used as the basis for his own versions. Facts about the vedute painter Morat are also thin. We only know that he was born in 1805 as the fifth of six children of Joseph Anton Morath and Margarete Trettner and, following his father's example, started a career as an artist. Although, like his father, he occasionally made portraits, his real talent lay in the depictions of places, in which he specialized. In order to visit the many places, some of which are far away, he must have made long journeys by stagecoach , as the railway south of Freiburg only opened up in parts from 1847. Obviously Morat was successful as a painter and had his income, as his first marriage in 1838 to Apollonia Stadler (1807–1850), the daughter of the Stühlinger Kronenwirt, suggests. The daughter Creszentia Morat (1839–1904) was born soon after the marriage; his wife had also brought their illegitimate son Zeno Stadler (1832-1908) into the marriage, who probably worked in his stepfather's workshop. In his few well-known independent works, however, Stadler does not achieve the quality of his master by far. After Apollonia's death, Morat married Katharina Hug (1816–1884) from Schwerzen, who was ten years his junior, in the same year 1850 . Morat worked artistically throughout his life and in the 1860s, now in competition with the emerging photography , tackled new views. He returned from a trip to Zell im Wiesental , which probably served to update old views, and then died in 1867. In contrast to his grandfather and father, Morat signed his works almost entirely as Morat without "th".

Johann Martin Morat: Sankt Blasien

Exhibitions

On the occasion of the silver wedding of Grand Duke Friedrich II , an exhibition of his pictures took place in Karlsruhe in 1910 . In 1918 his pictures were shown in the Kunsthalle Mannheim in the exhibition Das Badische Land im Bild . The solo exhibition on Morat, initiated by the local historian Gustav Häusler, took place in his birthplace in Stühlingen in 1939. As part of the exhibition Our Landscape. Upper Rhine, Black Forest, Lake Constance of the Freiburg Augustinermuseum were works by Morat, "a whole series of charming landscape portraits of the Biedermeier period", shown in January and February 1940 in the rooms of the art association . In 1980 the former director of the Augustinermuseum Hermann Gombert set up a presentation of 26 works by Morat for the opening of the Markgräfler Wine and Local History Museum in Müllheim . In 2019 the Augustinermuseum is holding a solo exhibition of his work in the House of the Graphic Collection under the title Blue Sky over Baden. Local views of the 19th century by Johann Martin Morat .

Literature (selection)

• The Baden region in the picture. A guide to the exhibition , ed. by Willy Friedrich Storck, Kunsthalle Mannheim 1919
• Gustav Häusler: The painter Johann Martin Morat from Stühlingen. 1805-1867 . In: My homeland. Baden papers for folklore, heritage and nature protection, monument preservation, family research and art, 25th year, volume 2, Freiburg i. Br. 1938, pp. 271-274
• Gustav Häusler: The Stühlinger painter family Morat (h) . In: Badische Heimat. My home country. Journal for local lore and heritage, nature and monument protection, folklore and folk art, family research, 33rd year, Freiburg i. Br. 1953, pp. 191-195
• Gustav Häusler: Stühlingen in the past and present . City of Stühlingen, Stühlingen 1966, p. 189.
• Max Schefold : Old Views from Baden , table and catalog volume. Konrad, Weissenhorn 1971.
• Adalbert Kanka: Johann Martin Morat (1805-1867) . In: The Markgräflerland. Contributions to his history and culture, H. 2, Schopfheim 1991, pp. 43–54
• Felix Reuße (ed.): Blue sky over Baden. Local views of the 19th century by Johann Martin Morat . Ostfildern, Thorbecke, 2019. ISBN 978-3-7995-1376-0

Web links

Commons : Johann Martin Morat  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gustav Häusler: Stühlingen. Past and Present , p. 189.