Leopold Ludwig Muller

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Leopold Ludwig Müller (born January 21, 1768 in Berlin ; † January 21, 1839 there ) was a German painter amateur during the Romantic period .

Live and act

Müller was the son of a Berlin merchant selling spices and dyes. He showed an interest in painting from childhood. He already had contact with the art of painting at home. His art-loving father owned, among other things, a collection of pictures and engravings and was in contact with the court painter Joachim Martin Falbe , in whose artist meetings he took part. The son liked to hear stories about the lectures there, "and already got a secret feeling for art in [his] youth, because [he] likes to see works of art, [...]."

When Müller came to the “ Graues Kloster ” grammar school in Berlin at the age of ten , he received methodical drawing lessons for the first time from the painter and wax engraver Otto Christian Sahler (1732 / 33-1810), and “would have liked everyone else to have lessons against them Drawing lessons swapped. ”At the request of his father, the 14-year-old began a commercial apprenticeship in his parents' material store after finishing school. In order to be able to devote himself entirely to his training, he was banned from painting, so that he “could [only] quietly satisfy his passion for drawing” and “the business that was incumbent upon him was much more difficult than it really was. “In order to present him the commercial activity“ from a brilliant side ”, the father sent him with a related merchant from Königsberg in the Neumark to Stettin . There he was supposed to "see the real life and goings-on of trade [...] in the opinion that [his] thoughts would thereby get a different direction." The desired success of this trip, however, did not materialize.

Back in Berlin, he repeatedly asked his father for an artistic training, which eventually allowed him to go to the Royal Prussian Academy of Arts and Mechanical Sciences in Berlin . From February 1790, Müller attended the drawing class of the portrait and history painter Ferdinand Collmann and from March the plaster class of the painter J. Graetsch (before 1770–1805). He also joined a group of classmates who painted plaster casts in the evenings, presumably to study the contrasting effects of light and shadow under lamplight. The group included the artists Heinrich Jacob Aldenrath , Carl Friedrich Hampe (1772–1848) and Ernst Friedrich Bussler (1773–1840), who later became famous . He also studied drawings by Abraham Bloemaert and painted landscapes “from nature”. Müller later etched paintings from his father's collection, including pictures by Roelof Jansz. van Vries (around 1631 – after 1681), Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich and Jan van Goyen tried the aquatint technique and copied drawings by the portrait and history painter Johann Christoph Frisch under the guidance of the academy director and book illustrator Johann Wilhelm Meil (1733–1805) . With his work, Müller took part in the Berlin academy exhibitions from 1791 to 1795 as an “academy student” or “aspiring artist”.

When his father became dependent on his support in dealing with materials as he got older, Müller gave up studying art and only painted watercolors in his free time . In 1802 he married and lived at Markgrafenstraße 74. At the academy exhibition in 1804, which he presented with landscapes “after nature” in ink and etching , he was already listed as a dilettante . His father died in 1806, so that for a while he could only devote himself to business and only later, with the support of his former classmate Karl Friedrich Hampe, painted landscapes “based on nature” in oil . Since 1810 both have regularly participated in the Berlin academy exhibitions, where Müller showed landscape, mood and genre pictures . In the catalog of the art exhibition of 1838, the genre pieces “Return of a village schoolmaster from the tavern”, “Disturbance during music lessons” and “Change of residence” are noted.

When the "Berlinische Künstlerverein" was founded on November 22nd, 1814 at the suggestion of the architect and painter Louis Catel , which appointed the sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow as its first chairman, Müller was one of the founding members. In 1827 he gave up his business and devoted himself entirely to art. His works are now owned by the Stadtmuseum Berlin Foundation , the SPSG , the National Gallery and in the Kupferstichkabinett , where three albums with historical Berlin cityscapes that Müller collected from artist friends are kept.

Works (selection)

Rousseau Island in the Tiergarten Berlin , around 1800
Café Stehely on Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin , 1827
The entry of the Prussian Crown Prince couple on the steamship ›Ishora‹ into St. Petersburg in June 1834 . In the background on the left the Imperial Academy of Arts on Vasilyevsky Island .

literature

Web links

Commons : Leopold Ludwig Müller  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Baptismal register of the Marienkirche, fol. 602r. Regional Church Archive in Berlin (ELAB).
  2. ↑ a b c d e autobiography by Leopold Ludwig Müller, 1820.
  3. ↑ Death book of Sophienkirche, No. 49/1839. Regional Church Archive in Berlin (ELAB).
  4. ^ Reimar F. Lacher: Artist (auto) biographies. P.56.
  5. ↑ Georg Kaspar Nagler: New general KünstlerLexicon, or messages from the life and works of painters, sculptors, architects, engravers, die cutter, lithographer, illustrator, Medals and Ivory, etc . 3. Edition. tape 11 . Schwarzenberg & Schumann, Leipzig 1936, p. 104-105 ( Text Archive - Internet Archive ). Or Volume 10, EA Fleischmann, Munich 1841, p. 13 ( books.google.de ).
  6. ^ Reimar F. Lacher: Artist (auto) biographies. P. 50.
personal data
SURNAME Müller, Leopold Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter dilettante
DATE OF BIRTH January 21, 1768
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH January 21, 1839
Place of death Berlin