Johannes Braungart

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Johannes Braungart (born June 14, 1803 in Rottenacker near Ehingen , † January 21, 1849 in Esslingen ) was a German landscape painter and draftsman .

life and work

Johannes Braungart spent his childhood under difficult circumstances in a family of radical Pietists in a village on the Württemberg border with the Danube. The parents, Johann Georg Baumgard (* October 17, 1774 in Rottenacker; † 1813 Solitude near Gerlingen), weaver and grave digger by profession, and his wife Salome, geb. Walter (born October 29, 1777 in Rottenacker; † 1818) were members of a group of separatists who refused to accept the authorities of church and state out of religious conviction and were punished for this with severe penalties. The father was arrested in 1804 by a Württemberg military command and taken to the Hohenasperg fortress , where he was interned almost continuously until 1813. The mother was also placed under arrest several times for stubbornly refusing to go to school for her children. The two sons Christoph (* 1798) and Johannes were admitted to the Stuttgart orphanage in 1813.

During his school days in the orphanage, Braungart's talent as a draftsman developed, so that he subsequently found a job as an apprentice painter in Carl Deffner's sheet metal factory in Esslingen. In 1821 Braungart went on trips, first to Augsburg and later to Vienna, in order to train himself as a painter. In 1823 he came back to Esslingen and worked again for the Deffner factory, which expanded rapidly during these years. He also worked for the art carving company Karl Weber, which produced painted jewelry and household goods made of wood and horn. Little is known about the next decade in Braungart's life; only with his wedding (June 12, 1834) does it become visible again in the archives. He married Pauline Scheffauer (born Nov. 26, 1801 in Stuttgart; † Nov. 26, 1857), a daughter of the Stuttgart sculptor Philipp Jakob Scheffauer . His mother-in-law, Caroline Heigelin, came from a respected family of the Württemberg respectability, so that the marriage spoke for the social recognition that the former orphan now enjoyed, even if the couple's financial circumstances remained precarious for life.

Apparently encouraged by his wife, Braungart tried to make a living as a landscape painter . He offered lessons in "drawing and painting flowers and landscapes" in the Esslinger advertising paper and since 1836 has participated in the exhibitions of the Württemberg Art Association . In 1838 he held a lottery to sell an oil painting . However, Braungart found it difficult to make a living as an artist in the former imperial city and to find buyers for his work, although he concentrated entirely on Esslingen motifs.

His friendship with the historian Karl Pfaff may have drawn Braungart's gaze to the medieval city, whose buildings were more and more open for demolition in the approaching industrial age. A prominent example is the Franciscan Church in Esslingen, the appearance of which Braungart's best-known painting from 1840, shortly before the nave was demolished. That is why the artistic estate of Braungart, which is mainly kept in the Esslingen City Museum , today also offers documentary value as a historical image source. Braungart apparently used a camera lucida for his landscape and architecture photographs , so that the works are characterized by a high level of fidelity. In portraiture is Braungart has never tried; in any case, no corresponding attempts have been reported. Thus, an important source of income remained closed to him as an artist, but Braungart seem to have been aware of the limits of his artistic possibilities in this regard.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eberhard Fritz: Separatists in Württemberg and in neighboring territories. Stuttgart 2005, p. 119, names 1800 as the year of birth.
  2. ^ Eberhard Fritz: Original Christian ideal and state reason. Württemberg separatists in the era of Napoleon. In: Journal for Württemberg State History 59.2000, pp. 71–98.
  3. ^ Margret Burscheidt: JB - landscape painter in Esslingen. In: Johannes Braungart 1803–1849. A painter in Esslingen. Exhib. Kat. Stadtmuseum Esslingen 1999, p. 11 f.
  4. ↑ The "Rear Church", as the Franciscan Church in Esslingen has been called since the 18th century, was "one of the oldest and most beautiful churches of the Franciscan Order in Germany". Cf. Julius Fekete: Preservation of monuments in the 19th and early 20th centuries using the example of the Franciscan Church in Esslingen. In: Esslinger Studien 32, 1993, pp. 111-163.
  5. ↑ Figure
personal data
SURNAME Braungart, Johannes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German landscape painter and draftsman
DATE OF BIRTH June 14, 1803
PLACE OF BIRTH Rottenacker , Germany
DATE OF DEATH January 21, 1849
Place of death Esslingen am Neckar , Germany