Carl Rahl

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Karl Rahl, lithograph by August Strixner
Carl Rahl

Carl Rahl (born August 13, 1812 in Vienna ; † July 9, 1865 ) was an Austrian painter .

life and work

Grave of Carl Rahl
Two of Carl Rahl's frescoes in the stairwell of the Vienna Museum of Military History: cleverness and courage as well as power and unity . On the right, only cropped in the photo, are the allegories of fame and honor .

Carl Rahl was the son of the engraver Carl Heinrich Rahl (1779–1843). He attended the academy there in Vienna and won a prize at the age of 19. Then he went to Munich , Stuttgart and Hungary and, in 1836, to Italy , where he studied by name according to the Venetians and the representatives of the Roman School, from which he developed his style based at the same time on greatness of conception and coloristic charms. In 1843 he met the Holsteiner Charles Ross in Rome , who persuaded his future father-in-law, the Hamburg merchant and art collector August Abendroth, to order a monumental execution of his painting "Persecution of Christians in the Catacombs near Rome" from Rahl. In 1844, Rahl and Charles Ross stayed in Hamburg and Kiel, where a number of portraits were created, including the historian Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann. When the attempt failed to bind Rahl to Schleswig-Holstein for a long time with a history painting for the Ständesaal in Itzehoe, Rahl and Ross traveled to Paris. Rahl was a radical democrat all his life, he visited Heinrich Heine and socialized with the Russian anarchist Michael Bakunin and the revolutionary leader Georg Herwegh. In February 1846 Rahl stayed in Rome again and returned to Kiel in the summer of 1847, where he carried out numerous portrait commissions on the aristocratic estates in the area. At the end of 1847 he was called to Copenhagen, where he made the last portrait of King Christian VIII, who died a few days after completing the picture. After a short trip to Sweden and Norway, Rahl settled in Munich, where Anselm Feuerbach entered his studio in Munich in 1849 . In 1850 Rahl was appointed professor at the Vienna Art Academy , but was soon relieved of his position for political reasons. He now opened a private school, which soon expanded and became the nursery of monumental painting, to which Carl Rahl devoted himself from then on with great success. On behalf of Baron Sina, he painted the pictures on the facade and in the vestibule of the Greek-Oriental Church of the Holy Trinity at the Alter Fleischmarkt in Vienna, as well as four pictures from the Greek heroic era and the four elements for the baron's palace. In 1861 he decorated the Heinrichshof with the personifications of the arts, peace and culture and the Palais Todesco with representations from the Paris myth .

In 1864, together with his students Christian Griepenkerl and Eduard Bitterlich, he frescoed a number of great allegorical figures in the staircase of the Imperial and Royal Court Weapons Museum (now the Army History Museum ), such as depictions of cleverness and courage , power and unity as well as fame and honor . Actually, according to the wishes of the architect Theophil von Hansen, he was also supposed to be commissioned to paint the frescoes in the great hall of fame of the new museum, but Emperor Franz Joseph I intervened in the award of the contract and preferred the history painter Karl von Blaas . But Rahl was "to his delight" at least the commission for the smaller frescoes in the stairwell.

The frescoes also belong to this period : Girls from abroad , in a villa in Gmunden , the compositions for a ballroom of the castle in Oldenburg and for a cycle from the Argonaut procession . Lately he has been making cardboard boxes for the New Opera in Vienna , which his students carried out after his death. Carl Rahl joined a rich, by Rubens and Titian formed color with monumental attitude. But his treatment of forms was sometimes too rough and overpowering, with the influence of Bonaventura Genelli , who was highly valued by Rahl, noticeable. Among his students are Eduard Bitterlich, August Eisenmenger , Károly Lotz , Christian Griepenkerl, Gustav Gaul , Mór Than and August George-Mayer .

From 1888 Eduard Lebiedzki created frescoes in the building of the Athens University based on Karl Rahl's cardboard boxes . The frescoes show the following themes: King Otto von Wittelsbach among the personified sciences; The Beginnings of Greek Philosophy; The builders of Athens; The golden age of Athens; The Philosophers of Athens; Aristotle and his students.

He rests in a grave of honor in Vienna's central cemetery (group 32 A, number 7). In 1866 the Rahlgasse in Vienna- Mariahilf (6th district) was named after him, in 1870 the neighboring Rahlstiege .

Works (selection)

  • 1834 High altar painting Engelsturz in the parish church Reichersberg
  • Drafts for the ceiling fresco in the stairwell of the Imperial and Royal Arms Museum (today the Museum of Military History):
  • Persecution of Christians in the Roman Catacombs , 1844, oil on canvas 202.5 × 345.5 cm, Hamburger Kunsthalle
  • Portrait of Friedrich Hebbel , 1849, oil on canvas, 71 × 58 cm. Schleswig-Holstein State Library in Kiel
    • The Tactics , 1863, oil on canvas, approx. 40 × 55 cm, Army History Museum, Room IV
    • The history of war , 1863, oil on canvas, approx. 40 × 55 cm, Army History Museum, Room IV
    • The Strategy , 1863, oil on canvas, approx. 40 × 55 cm, Army History Museum, Room IV
  • Full-length portraits of King Otto of Greece and Queen Amalie, 1859, oil on canvas, Neue Residenz (Bamberg)

literature

Carl Rahl: Children's party

Web links

Commons : Carl Rahl  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Army History Museum: 100 Years of the Army History Museum. Known and unknown about its history. Vienna 1991.
personal data
SURNAME Rahl, Carl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian painter
DATE OF BIRTH August 13, 1812
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH July 9, 1865
Place of death Vienna