Nikolaus Müller (artist)
Nikolaus Müller (also: Niklas Müller ) (* May 6, 1770 in Mainz ; † June 14, 1851 there ) was a painter and writer in Mainz in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. As a curator of the picture gallery of the city of Mainz, he was also a sponsor of the fine arts and literature and founded the Mainz Academy for Drawing . He was also instrumental in founding the Mainz Antiquities Association.
Youth and education
Nikolaus Müller was born in 1770 as one of a total of 17 children to a merchant couple from Mainz. Together with five brothers he attended high school and later the electoral university. He finished his studies in Mainz in 1778 with the academic degrees of Bachelor and Magister. Another year of study followed in Mainz, this time Müller studied at the law and medical faculties. However, he soon broke off his studies in these subjects and worked as a theater painter.
Political activity from 1792
With the occupation of Mainz by French revolutionary troops in 1792, the student Nikolaus Müller also became politically active as a German Jacobin . He joined the recently founded Society of Friends of Freedom and Equality (also known as the Freedom or Jacobin Club) and gave several political speeches there in 1792/1793. He was also a member of two committees, the Comité d'instruction and the Comité de surveillance . Together with Friedrich Lehne he later published republican poems and became known as the author of a "freedom song".
His fellow student Peter Nikolaus Theyer founded the so-called "Lovers' Theater" at the end of January 1793. Pieces written by him and Müller such as Die Patrioten , Der Freiheitsbaum or Die Dorftyrannen were performed here. At the same time, Nikolaus Müller founded a “amateur theater company”. He was her director and also acted as a theater painter. Müller wrote the following poem about the founding of the theater and its political meaning:
“ Charity! Republican Sense!
The proud virtues which we otherwise at least
removed from this temple;
They lead you here - Oh holy gain,
Which we reap with sweat on these boards! "
The performance took place in the provisional theater in the former electoral stables in the Große Bleiche until the building was destroyed by fire bombs during the siege of Mainz (1793) .
After the city was handed over to the coalition troops on July 24, 1793, Nikolaus Müller, now a French soldier, left Mainz with the withdrawing revolutionary troops and moved to Paris . The revolutionary turmoil of the reign of terror in Paris disaffected Müller, like many other German Jacobins , but lastingly. He became mentally ill and suffered a nervous breakdown, as a result of which he was bedridden for a long time. His political activity as a Jacobin declined significantly after this time, although he and his friend Friedrich Lehne published the republican poetry volume in Mainz in 1799 . However, he maintained contact with former fellow students and professors from the period 1792/93 for a long time and as late as 1810 there were poems by him in honor of Adam Lux and Georg Forster , the then Mainz envoy of the Rhenish-German National Convention .
Artistic activity
Nikolaus Müller's artistic talent was already noticed at the age of seven. During this time he is said to have made his own parodies of church and folk songs. His first works went to press when he was 16. Some of them were performed on the Mainz theater stage.
At this age, Müller began to work as a theater painter. He helped the theater painters of the time, Wenceslaus and Zealand. After an academic interlude at the electoral university in Mainz, he was already working exclusively as a theater painter before 1792. After his recovery in Paris he was among others a student of Jacques-Louis David in the period 1793/94 . During this time he painted portraits in pastel and a large stage set for the Théatre Faydeau with the motif of a tomb for Romeo and Juliet.
In February 1794 Müller returned from Paris and in the meantime worked as a writer and artist in Strasbourg and Landau in the Palatinate . With the renewed occupation of Mainz by the French, Nikolaus Müller returned to his hometown Mainz on February 14, 1798. He earned his living as a private drawing teacher, writer and again as a theater painter. In 1802 he became a teacher of artistic aesthetics and drawing at the Mainz Lyceum. In 1805 he was appointed curator of the municipal picture gallery founded shortly before by Napoleon . He also worked as a restorer for the picture gallery. Even after the withdrawal of the French administration and the subsequent administration of Mainz by the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, Müller remained in office despite his political past.
Until his death in 1851, Nikolaus Müller made many contributions to the promotion of the fine arts and literature in Mainz. He founded the Academy for Drawing in 1825 and was one of the initiators in founding the Mainz Antiquities Association in 1841 . In 1846 he published a work on the seven last electors of Mainz.
family
Nikolaus Müller was married to Maria Anna Fachinger in 1801, from whom he divorced in 1820. From this marriage his son Johann Baptist Eduard Müller came, who later married the Mainz painter Rosa Achenbach . In his second marriage, Müller married Anna Maria Achenbach in 1837. Nikolaus Müller died on June 14, 1851 and was buried in the main cemetery in Mainz . His grave no longer exists today.
literature
- Nina Struckmeyer: Müller, Nikolaus , in: Savoy, Bénédicte and Nerlich, France (ed.): Paris apprenticeship years. A lexicon for training German painters in the French capital. Volume 1: 1793-1843 , Berlin / Boston 2013, pp. 211-213.
- Emanuel readers: Müller, Nikolaus . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1885, p. 655.
- Gertrud Rösch: Müller, Nikolaus. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 18, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-428-00199-0 , p. 460 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Wolfgang Balzer: Mainz: personalities of the city history. Volume 2: Persons of religious life, persons of political life, persons of general cultural life, scientists, writers, artists, musicians. Kügler Verlag, Ingelheim 1989, ISBN 3-924124-03-9
- Jörg Schweigard: Enlightenment and enthusiasm for revolution at the University of Mainz 1782-1792. Master's thesis at the University of Mainz, GRIN Verlag, 2007, ISBN 3-6387-1329-6
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ quoted from: Jörg Schweigard: Enlightenment and Enthusiasm for Revolution at the University of Mainz 1782-1793 , pp. 120–121.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Müller, Nikolaus |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Müller, Niklas |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Mainz Jacobins and painters |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 6, 1770 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Mainz |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 14, 1851 |
| Place of death | Mainz |