Karl Schnaase

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Karl Schnaase , portrait by Eduard Steinbrück
Signature Karl Schnaase.PNG

Karl Schnaase (* September 7, 1798 as Carl Julius Ferdinand Schnaase in Danzig ; † May 20, 1875 in Wiesbaden ) was a German lawyer and art historian .

life and work

His father, a merchant's son, had studied law and pursued poetic and historical studies throughout his life. Since the family moved around a lot, Schnaase was first taught by private tutors and his father, and only then did he attend various schools in Berlin . He did not oppose his father's wish to become a lawyer as well. In 1816, the year of his death, he enrolled in Berlin to study law. Surrounded by impatient fellow students in a troubled era, he did not take much pleasure in the subject, but dutifully heard his professor Friedrich Carl von Savigny . In the following year he moved to Heidelberg to Professor Anton Friedrich Justus Thibaut . In the Neckarstadt he was impressed by the painting presentation “Collection of Old, Lower and Upper German Paintings” in the Palais Boisserée . At the law school, however, he was fascinated by Hegel's aesthetics lecture . In the fall of 1818 Schnaase followed him to Berlin, where his mother still lived. He continued to take legal seminars , but his heart belonged to Hegel's views and lectures . After the legal state examination in July 1819, mother and son moved back to their old home in Gdansk. A vacation trip to Dresden gave him renewed art enjoyment, but his professional career was now in the foreground.

After his employment at the Danzig district court, Schnaase was appointed judge ( Assessor ) in Königsberg in 1826 , after a short time in Marienwerder, procurator in Düsseldorf in 1829 and then secretary of the Kunstverein for the Rhineland and Westphalia , from 1840 to 1848 its chairman, and member of the board of trustees of the art academy Dusseldorf . With his numerous writings, he played a key role in establishing the so-called Düsseldorf School of Painting . Between 1848 and 1856 he held a position as a council member at the Prussian Upper Tribunal , the highest court in Berlin. His apartment in the house of the sculptor Friedrich Drake near the zoo developed into a meeting place for artists and art historians. He achieved a high reputation for lectures and association work. In 1857 he retired and from then on devoted himself exclusively to his art-historical interest, in particular he concentrated on Christian art . In 1858, together with the theologian Carl Grüneisen and the painter Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, he was the founder and co-editor of the Christian Art Journal for Church, School and House , which was published in Stuttgart . In the same year he toured Italy , which he had visited extensively for the first time more than 30 years earlier. Belgium and Austria were his destination in 1860 and 1861, respectively. In Austria there was close contact with the Vienna School of Art History . As a result, Schnaase published an essay on the history of Austrian painting in the 15th century in its publication organ in 1862, which was to acquire a certain significance. Furthermore, in his old age, now based in Wiesbaden, he attended the 1st International Art Exhibition in the Munich Glass Palace in 1869 and the Hans Holbein Exhibition in the Dresden Zwinger in October 1871 . In 1875, Schnaase, who had been suffering from health problems for a long time, died in Wiesbaden.

Thanks to his philosophical talent and his historical perspective, Schnaase became one of the founders of scientific art studies in Germany. In addition to his main work, the world cultural history of the fine arts (eight volumes, 1843–1864), he wrote Dutch Letters (1834), a formally based on travel manuals based on philosophical (the architecture) art observation, which contributed to the rediscovery of the art landscapes of Holland and Belgium which Baedeker also referred to in his early travel guides for Belgium and Holland, as well as a number of shorter writings. In terms of the history of ideas, his work follows the tradition of the universal historical view of art, which at that time was particularly influenced by the Berlin School of Art History, such as Franz Kugler , who was a friend of Schnaase .

The Philosophical University of Bonn awarded Schnaase his doctorate, he also received the Maximilian Order from King Maximilian of Bavaria (1869) and the Berlin Academy of the Arts made him an honorary member in 1853. In 1869 he was elected a foreign member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences .

Schnaase was buried in the old cemetery in Wiesbaden; the grave no longer exists.

literature

  • Karl Schnaase: Dutch letters . (Reprint of the edition Stuttgart, Tübingen, Cotta, 1834 / with an introduction and a list of topics, edited by Henrik Karge) Hildesheim 2010, ISBN 978-3-487-13434-5
  • Henrik Karge: Franz Kugler and Karl Schnaase - two projects to establish “general art history” . In: Michel Espagne, Bénédicte Savoy, Céline Trautmann-Waller (eds.): Franz Theodor Kugler. German art historian and Berlin poet . Berlin 2010, pp. 83-104
  • Wolfgang Cortjaens: Model Landscape Rhine-Maas? Topographical and cultural-political classification criteria in the Prussian art history of the Vormärz: Karl Schnaase, Franz Kugler and Franz Mertens and the construction of national and regional “schools” . In: Wolfgang Cortjaens, Jan De Maeyer, Tom Verschaffel: Historism and Cultural Identity in the Rhine Meuse Region. Tensions between Regionalism and Nationalism in the 19th Century . Leuven University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-90-5867-666-5 , pp. 95-111
  • Henrik Karge: Karl Schnaase. The Development of Scientific Art History in the 19th Century . In: Kunsthistorische Arbeitsblätter , 2001, issue 7/8, pp. 87-100
  • Udo Kultermann: History of Art History . Prestel-Verlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-7913-1056-9 , pp. 94-95
  • P [eter] B [etthausen]: Schnaase, Karl . In: Metzler-Kunsthistoriker-Lexikon . 210 portraits of German-speaking authors from four centuries. 2nd, updated and expanded edition. JB Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2007, ISBN 978-3-476-02183-0 , p. 388-391 .
  • Gabriele Bickendorf: The “Berlin School”: Carl Friedrich von Rumohr (1785–1843), Gustav Friedrich Waagen (1794–1868), Karl Schnaase (1798–1875) and Franz Kugler (1808–1858) . In: Ulrich Pfisterer (Ed.): Classics of Art History . 1: From Winckelmann to Warburg (=  Beck'sche series ). tape 1782 . Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-54802-4 , pp. 46-61 .
  • Karl Schnaase . In: Theodor Westrin, Ruben Gustafsson Berg (eds.): Nordisk familjebok konversationslexikon och realencyklopedi . 2nd Edition. tape 24 : Ryssläder secretary . Nordisk familjeboks förlag, Stockholm 1916, Sp. 1134 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Belgium and Holland. Guide for travelers . Karl Baedeker Verlag, Coblenz 1863, 8th edition, p. IV
personal data
SURNAME Schnaase, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schnaase, Carl Julius Ferdinand (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and art historian
DATE OF BIRTH September 7, 1798
PLACE OF BIRTH Danzig
DATE OF DEATH May 20, 1875
Place of death Wiesbaden