Ludwig Sigismund Ruhl

Ludwig Sigismund Ruhl at the age of 24, portrayed by Carl Vogel von Vogelstein

Ludwig Sigismund Ruhl (born December 10, 1794 in Kassel ; † March 7, 1887 there ) was a painter, graphic artist, academy professor and museum director in Kassel.

origin

Ludwig Sigismund Ruhl was born as the eldest son of the court sculptor Johann Christian Ruhl into a family that immigrated to Kassel in the 18th century . His grandfather Johannes Ruhl came from Hanau in 1756 to the court of Landgrave Wilhelm VIII of Hessen-Kassel , where he worked as a master carpenter. About his mother Elisabeth, geb. Völkel, Ruhl was related to Johann Ludwig Völkel , director of the Kassel State Library . His younger brother was the master builder Julius Eugen Ruhl .

education

Ludwig attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Kassel in his early youth and was encouraged to draw by his father. There he met the painter Ludwig Emil Grimm in 1808 . In his youth there was the occupation of Kassel by Marshal Bernadotte on September 17, 1805, but the boy experienced this period as quite calm. At first he went to the local lyceum, but in 1807 he had to break off classes at his mother's insistence. From then on he received private lessons from Pastor Krug.

The fact that Ruhl's father was named "Sculpteur du Roi" by King Jeromé , King of Westphalia appointed by Napoleon , opened the Ruhlsche Haus to artists and writers, including Charles de Villers , Dominique Vivant Denon , Clemens and Bettina Brentano as well as Achim von Arnim . This latter connection came about through the banker Carl Jordis , husband of the poet Maria Ludovica Katharina Brentano, called "Lulu" , who moved to Kassel in 1806. Ludwig stayed in contact with Achim von Arnim for many years.

Göttingen, Dresden, Munich, Rome

In the winter semester of 1811/1812 Ruhl began studying anatomy , aesthetics and art history in Göttingen . There he met the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer . In the spring of 1814 Ruhl took part as a volunteer in the French campaign against Napoleon, from which he returned in July. He immediately traveled to Dresden , where he studied for a year at the local academy . There he met Arthur Schopenhauer again, whose youth portrait he made in 1815.

Arthur Schopenhauer as a young man, portrayed by Ludwig Sigismund Ruhl in 1815

In 1815 Ruhl traveled to Munich and enrolled at the art academy there. Here he met the student Karl Philipp Fohr , with whom he shared a room. Together with him he illustrated Ludwig Tieck's fairy tale Melusine ; together they also illustrated the fairy tale Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué .

In the spring of 1816, Ruhl and Fohr planned a trip to Rome. Since Fohr was unable to attend due to illness, Ruhl traveled alone and stayed there until 1818. He joined the artists' colony there and lived with Bertel Thorvaldsen , the Schadow brothers , Christian Daniel Rauch and Karl Wilhelm Wach in the Casa Buti . This is where the illustrations for the Nibelungen saga were created . In November 1816, Carl Philipp Fohr joined the artists' colony and lived next to Ruhl in the Casa Buti. During this time the paintings Adoration of the Three Kings , Tannhauser in the Venusberg , Dragon Fight of St. George were created . Ruhl leaned on the style of the Nazarenes .

In the meantime, the friendship with Fohr broke up and resulted in a pistol duel on March 24, 1817. They both missed, they drank brotherhood again, but the friendship ended. Ruhl then stayed in Naples for three months before returning to Rome. In August 1818 Ruhl met the writer Wilhelm Müller ; he traveled with him to Florence , only to return to Kassel alone, where he arrived in November 1818.

kassel

Returning from his trip, he did not feel very comfortable at home, which was also due to the assumption of government by Wilhelm II , whose autocratic style of government he did not like. After 1815, the Electress Auguste , who lived separately from her husband in Schönfeld Palace near Kassel, formed the so-called Schönfeld Circle , a circle of oppositional forces, which the brothers Julius and Ludwig Ruhl now joined. This was followed by trips to Hanau, where his brother Julius lived, in 1824 to Frankfurt to Arthur Schopenhauer, in 1825 to Berlin, where he frequented Arnim , Eichendorff , Fouqué , Rauch , Savigny , Humboldt and Gneisenau . From 1823 he was in contact with August von Platen-Hallermünde by letter .

The drawing Faust and Gretchen in the garden , the painting Three Singing Angels and the illustrations for the works of Shakespeare were created in Kassel . Goethe mentioned The Singing Angels in the magazine About Art and Antiquity , whereupon Joseph von Eichendorff contacted him. In addition, the so-called Capricci appeared , caricatures that were formed from letters of the alphabet and criticized the Biedermeier society. Although these works were among Ruhl's strongest, they were not known to a larger audience.

In 1826 the Electress Auguste and her son Friedrich Wilhelm left for Bonn; there they were visited by the brothers Julius and Ludwig Ruhl. This connection paid off: when Elector Wilhelm II left Kassel in 1831, Elector Prince Friedrich Wilhelm took over the government. Ruhl was commissioned to paint Friedrich Wilhelm, and in 1832 Ruhl entered the academy as a professor. Shortly afterwards he was appointed director of the picture gallery and the museum, later director of the prince-electoral library in Wilhelmshöhe and head of the secret cabinet archive. His marriage to Freiin Sophie von Verschuer in 1830 is probably related to these promotions.

In 1837 he went on a second trip to Rome with his brother. In November 1840 he was appointed director of the academy. He wasn't particularly popular with the professors, although he had pushed through salary increases for them: a certain worldly shyness gave him an unapproachable nature. Ruhl isolated himself more and more from others. During these years he was often seen riding on a little white horse in Wilhelmshöher Allee.

Ludwig Sigismund Ruhl at the age of around 90, portrayed by Louis Kolitz

In the 1840s, Ruhl concentrated on mythological motifs in his drawings. From 1860 he tried his hand at writing, and knight legends with fantastic and allegorical images were created. In the last years of his life he returned to drawing, he made designs for majolica vessels ; only after his death was one of his designs carried out.

Ruhl retired in 1867. In 1879 Malwida von Meysenbug wrote to the old artist from Italy; he had known her as a girl. A 7-year correspondence began, which lasted until his death on March 7, 1887 in Kassel.

plant

• 1814 taming a horse of antiquity
• 1815 portrait of Arthur Schopenhauer
• 1815/16 illustrations for Melusine and Undine
• 1816 illustrations for the Nibelung saga
• 1816 Adoration of the Magi
• 1816 Tannhäuser in the Venusberg
• 1816 Dragon fight of St. George
• 1819 Faust and Gretchen in the garden
• 1819 Three singing angels
• 1827 sheets on Romeo and Juliet
• 1827 Capricci
• 1838–1840 Sketches for Shakespears plays . Warrior u. a., Cassel 1838 ( digitized version )
• 1840–1841 Dante ponders his Divina Commedia . Fichter, Frankfurt am Main, March 2015
• 1841 Bianca Capello dies
• 1846 On the conception of nature in horse education, ancient sculpture (article)
• from 1875 designs for majolica vessels

literature

• Tjark Hausmann: Ruhl, Ludwig Sigismund, painter. In: Ingeborg Schnack (Ed.): Life pictures from Kurhessen and Waldeck 1830–1930 = publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse and Waldeck 20, 5th volume, Marburg 1955, pp. 302–313.
• Brigitte Rechberg-Heydegger: Ludwig Sigismund Ruhl (1794-1887): Leben u. Werk , Gießen, Univ., Department of History, Dissertation 1973.
• Berta Schleicher (Ed.): Fairy tale woman and painter poet. Malwida von Meysenbug and Ludwig Sigismund Ruhl. An exchange of letters , Munich 1929.
• Susanna Partsch : Ruhl, Ludwig Sigismund . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 100, de Gruyter, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-11-023266-0 , p. 110.