Moritz Daniel Oppenheim

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Self-Portrait, 1814–1816,
Jewish Museum (New York City)
Moritz Daniel Oppenheim:
Portrait of his first wife
Adelheid Cleve (1829, whereabouts unknown, presumably private property)

Moritz Daniel Oppenheim (born on January 8, 1800 in Hanau ; died on February 25, 1882 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German portrait and history painter who, in addition to portraits, also often painted environmental studies in oil. He is considered to be the first Jewish painter to achieve worldwide fame.

Life

Moritz Daniel Oppenheim grew up in a petty-bourgeois Jewish-Orthodox milieu. From the age of four he attended the Jewish primary school, the cheder , where he learned Hebrew and Jewish prayers. As a boy, Oppenheim experienced the invasion of the Imperial French army in 1806 and the associated dissolution of the Hanau ghetto . From 1810 Oppenheim attended the Hanau Electoral Drawing Academy , where he received drawing lessons from the painter and copper engraver Conrad Westermayr and painting lessons from his wife Henriette in Hanau.

Around 1814, there is evidence of copying activity in the collection of paintings of Count Karl Christian Ernst von Bentzel-Sternau in Emmerichshofen Castle, which he received through Westermayr's mediation. Here he got to know the works of old Italian masters. He was the first Jewish artist to receive academic training and, at the age of fourteen, carried out work for the Finance Minister of the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt . The portrait of Baruch Eschwege , a Hanau merchant in the uniform of voluntary hunters from the Electorate of Hesse against the backdrop of the Philippsruhe Palace, was probably created during this time . From 1818 Oppenheim received a two-year training course at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich . There he was a student of Johann Peter von Langer and his son Robert von Langer . Then he returned to Hanau. His talent for drawing brought him to the Städel Art Institute in Frankfurt in 1820 .

In 1820/21 Oppenheim went to Paris and became a student of Jean-Baptiste Regnault . In 1821 he also took part in the concours des places at the École des beaux-arts . Between 1821 and 1825 Oppenheim stayed in Italy, including Rome, Florence and Naples. In Rome he made the acquaintance of artists from the circle of the Nazarenes around Friedrich Overbeck and Bertel Thorvaldsen . In 1824 he took part in the drawing competition of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, won the first prize, which was immediately revoked due to his Jewish origins. In Naples he finally met his future patron Baron Carl Mayer von Rothschild , for whose family he worked as a portraitist and art agent in the following years.

After his return to Frankfurt am Main (1825) he established himself as a history, genre and portrait painter for the emancipated Jewish bourgeoisie . In addition to his work for the Rothschild family, he made portraits of important Jewish personalities such as Heinrich Heine , Ludwig Börne and Gabriel Riesser .

Oppenheim and his second wife Fanny Goldschmidt had three children, Daniel Guido Oppenheim, Angela Clementine Oppenheim and Jacob Eugen Oppenheim. His grandson Alfred Oppenheim was also a painter.

Relation to Judaism

Moritz Daniel Oppenheim was an outstanding artist in various ways. To have followed a vocation as a painter was not a matter of course for Jews in the first half of the 19th century. Painting as part of the visual arts was viewed with skepticism in Judaism at the time. It was considered to be the art of the Christian Church, and the ban on images derived from the Second Commandment also applied to this art genre, even if Jews provided important patrons and art collectors. Because of his academic training, Oppenheim was considered "the first Jewish painter". In addition, in contrast to the few painters of Jewish origin of his time, such as the Nazarene brothers Johannes and Philipp Veit , he did not convert to Christianity, although it was suggested to him. Oppenheim particularly distinguished himself for having chosen, without a role model - and in contrast to most of the subsequent Jewish painters of the 19th century until the beginning of the Holocaust - to a significant extent topics related to Jewish life, Jewish education, including the formation of identity, the Dedicated to patriotism and Jewish piety.

JW von Goethe (after 1828) surrounded by illustrations of his works

Although not a radical innovator, his paintings with their ghetto scenes, milieu studies, everyday occurrences and the celebration of Jewish festivals in the family framework were the artistic expression of Jewish emancipation - topics that he exaggerated, embellished in a thoroughly Christian-bourgeois sense and thus created as a counter-throw of Jewish bourgeoisie. With his picture Lavater and Lessing with Moses Mendelssohn , he addressed this emancipation using the example of one of the most important disputes of the Jewish Enlightenment .

This struggle for a threefold identity as artist, citizen and Jew pervades Oppenheim's entire life's work, so that all works are equally committed to emancipation and the ideals of the bourgeoisie. In the 1820s to 1850s, this is documented by portraits of well-known Jewish citizens and the genre scenes. In his later work these receded; the discussion about the meaning and value of Jewish life traditions now dominates. Oppenheim's secular work, especially his portraiture, was respected among Jews and non-Jews alike, and even Goethe had himself portrayed by him. With his pictures devoted to Jewish subjects, however, he achieved special and lasting recognition in the Jewish community. The cycle Pictures from Old Jewish Family Life , which appeared as a late work from 1866 in numerous collotype prints that were repeatedly reprinted , found great sales well into the 20th century.

Collections

Oppenheim's tomb in the old Jewish cemetery in Rat-Beil-Strasse in Frankfurt
Moritz and the dancing picture - sculpture by Robert Schad , portrait MD Oppenheim (right) by Pascal Coupot on the Freiheitsplatz in Hanau

The catalog raisonné documents more than 700 works, almost a third of which have been lost. A large part of his work was lost when his grandson, the art collector and painter Alfred Oppenheim (1873–1953) was forced to emigrate to London during the Nazi era. His possessions, including the return of a Jewish volunteer from the Wars of Liberation , remained almost entirely in Frankfurt. Half a year before the Eleventh Ordinance on the Reich Citizenship Act , Oppenheim's property, which was stored with a forwarding agency, was confiscated by the Gestapo in 1941 . At the instigation of Ernst Holzinger , the director of the Städelsche Kunstinstitut, some of the paintings were bought for various Frankfurt museums in 1943 before they were auctioned off. In the post-war period, Oppenheim managed to receive financial compensation for this, but he died before this was finally carried out. The heirs of Alfred Oppenheim sold the remaining parts of the estate to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in 1958 .

In addition to the pieces that have found their way into the art trade and international museums, there are now larger holdings of paintings by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim in the Jewish Museum Frankfurt am Main and in the Historisches Museum Hanau Schloss Philippsruhe . The Ludwig Rosenthal Hall of the Hanauer Museum is completely dedicated to the works of Oppenheim. Pictures from the extensive Hanau holdings are shown in regular alternation, including Der Bleichgarten , Mignon and the Harpner , the museum visitors and a self-portrait.

Memorial, film

Oppenheim's tomb is located in the old Jewish cemetery in Rat-Beil-Strasse in Frankfurt and has been preserved. In the course of the redesign of the Hanau Freedom Square , a large abstract monument by the artist Robert Schad was erected for the Hanau-born painter in front of the new "Forum" . It is titled Moritz and the dancing image (Oppenheim portrait by Pascal Coupot ).

The documentary Moritz Daniel Oppenheim - the first Jewish painter , German Moritz Daniel Oppenheim. The first Jewish painter , the director Isabel Gathof, brings the work of Oppenheim together with the creation of Coupot's sculpture on two narrative levels. In 2017 he was nominated for the Hessian Film Prize in the “Documentary” category.

The house where he was born in today's Nordstrasse in Hanau can no longer be precisely located due to the extensive destruction of the city in the Second World War and the subsequent redesign.

swell

  • Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, Memories , Frankfurt am Main 1924 (Reprints: Memories of a German-Jewish Painter. Edited and with an afterword by Christmut Präger, Heidelberg 1999; Memories , Hamburg 2013)

literature

  • Hyacinth Holland :  Oppenheim, Moritz . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 52, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1906, pp. 706-708.
  • Ruth Dröse, Frank Eisermann, Monica Kingreen, Anton Merk: The cycle “Pictures from the old Jewish family life” and his painter Moritz Daniel Oppenheim. CoCon-Verlag, Hanau 1996, ISBN 3-928100-36-X .
  • Georg Heuberger , Anton Merk (ed.): Moritz Daniel Oppenheim. The discovery of Jewish self-awareness in art. Wienand Verlag, Cologne 1999, ISBN 3-87909-654-6 (catalog of the exhibition of the same name, Jewish Museum Frankfurt , December 16, 1999 to April 2, 2000).
  • Anton Merk: Moritz Daniel Oppenheim . In: City time. Magazin für Hanau , vol. 2 (1998), pp. 181–185 (history magazine on the occasion of the anniversary 150 years of revolution and gymnastics movement Hanau 1848–1998).
  • Anton Merk: The painter Moritz Oppenheim. Apprenticeship years 1816 to 1821 - Hanau, Munich, Hanau, Paris. In: Stadtzeit 6. 700 years of city rights, 400 years of Jewish existence. Hanau 2003, ISBN 3-9806988-8-2 , pp. 263-271.
  • Erik Riedel: Moritz Daniel Oppenheim - a Jewish painter of the emancipation period. In: Napoleon and romanticism - impulses and effects. Published by the Magistrate of the Brothers Grimm City of Hanau, Department of Culture, City Identity & International Relations / City Museums Hanau. (=  Publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse. Volume 83). Historical Commission for Hessen, Marburg 2016 ISBN 978-3-942225-32-8 , pp. 83–98.
  • Claus Stephani : The image of the Jew in modern painting. An introduction. / Imaginea evreului în pictura modernă. Introductiv study. Traducere in limba română de Ion Peleanu. (Bilingual edition, German-Romanian. Ediţie bilingvă, româno-germană.) Editura Hasefer: Bucureşti, 2005. ISBN 973-630-091-9
  • Theresa Wißmann: Oppenheim, Moritz Daniel. In: Bénédicte Savoy, France Nerlich (ed.): Paris apprenticeship years. A lexicon for training German painters in the French capital. Volume 1: 1793-1843. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-029057-8 , pp. 218-221.
  • Isabel Gathof, Esther Graf: Moritz Daniel Oppenheim. Rothschild Painter and Rothschild Painter. Hentrich & Hentrich Verlag, Berlin / Leipzig, 2019, ISBN 978-3-95565-299-9 .

Web links

Commons : Moritz Daniel Oppenheim  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to the information on the tombstone. The dates are probably different due to a different measurement of the day in the Jewish calendar ; see Isabel Gathof, Esther Graf: Moritz Daniel Oppenheim. Rothschild Painter and Rothschild Painter. Hentrich & Hentrich Verlag, Berlin / Leipzig, 2019, p. 12 and 80 respectively.
  2. ^ Anton Merk: The painter Moritz Oppenheim. Apprenticeship years 1816 to 1821 - Hanau, Munich, Hanau, Paris. In: Stadtzeit 6. Hanau 2003, p. 263.
  3. ^ Nachum T. Gidal: The Jews in Germany. From Roman times to the Weimar Republic . Könemann, Cologne 1997, ISBN 3-8950-8540-5 , p. 166.
  4. ^ Annette Weber: Moritz Oppenheim as an artist, citizen and Jew in the mirror of his portrait work. In: Georg Heuberger, Anton Merk (Ed.): Moritz Daniel Oppenheim. The discovery of Jewish self-awareness in art . Wienand Verlag, Cologne 1999, ISBN 3-87909-654-6 , p. 187.
  5. ↑ Among others see Michael Brenner , Stefi Jersch-Wenzel , Michael A. Meyer : German-Jewish history in the modern times. Volume 2: Emancipation and Acculturation 1780–1871. CH Beck, Munich 1996, p. 250.
  6. ↑ Asher D. Biemann: Michelangelo and the Jewish modernity. Vienna University Press, Göttingen 2016, pp. 34–36.
  7. ↑ Among others see Michael Brenner, Stefi Jersch-Wenzel, Michael A. Meyer: German-Jewish history in the modern times. Volume 2: Emancipation and Acculturation 1780–1871. CH Beck, Munich 1996, p. 250.
  8. ↑ Michael Brenner, Stefi Jersch-Wenzel, Michael A. Meyer: German-Jewish history in modern times. Volume 2: Emancipation and Acculturation 1780–1871. CH Beck, Munich 1996, p. 251.
  9. ↑ Simone Lässig : Jewish ways into the bourgeoisie. Cultural capital and social advancement in the 19th century. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, p. 548 f.
  10. ↑ Simone Lässig: Jewish ways into the bourgeoisie. Cultural capital and social advancement in the 19th century. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, p. 549.
  11. ↑ Christoph Schulte : The Jewish Enlightenment: Philosophy, Religion, History. CH Beck, Munich 2002, pp. 7-14.
  12. ^ Annette Weber: Moritz Oppenheim as an artist, citizen and Jew in the mirror of his portrait work. In: Georg Heuberger, Anton Merk (Ed.): Moritz Daniel Oppenheim. The discovery of Jewish self-awareness in art. Wienand, Cologne 1999, pp. 187–198, here pp. 187f.
  13. ^ Erik Riedel: Moritz Daniel Oppenheim - a Jewish painter of the emancipation period. In: Napoleon and the romanticism - impulses and effects (=  publications of the historical commission for Hesse. Volume 83). Historical Commission for Hessen, Marburg 2016, pp. 83 and 94 f.
  14. ↑ Andreas Hansert: On the Fate of collection Alfred Oppenheim during and after the Nazi era. In: Georg Heuberger, Anton Merk (Ed.): Moritz Daniel Oppenheim. The discovery of Jewish self-awareness in art . Wienand Verlag, Cologne 1999, ISBN 3-87909-654-6 , pp. 304-325.
  15. ^ Anton Merk: The artistic work. In: Ruth Dröse, Frank Eisermann, Monica Kingreen, Anton Merk: The cycle “Pictures from the old Jewish family life” and his painter Moritz Daniel Oppenheim. CoCon-Verlag, Hanau 1996, p. 31.
  16. ↑ Moritz Daniel Oppenheim in the city magazine “Hanau neulebnis ” , hanau-neu-erleben.de, accessed on October 14, 2016 (with several pictures of the monument)
  17. ↑ press release hessenfilm.de ; Feinshmeker film
personal data
SURNAME Oppenheim, Moritz Daniel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German portrait and history painter
DATE OF BIRTH January 7, 1800
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanau
DATE OF DEATH February 26, 1882
Place of death Frankfurt am Main