Roland Anheisser

Carl Maximilian Roland Anheisser (born December 18, 1877 in Düsseldorf ; † March 16, 1949 in Jugenheim , Hessen ) was a German painter , graphic artist , botanist , drawing teacher and writer .

Live and act

Roland Anheisser studied botany and zoology at the Universities of Bonn and Jena. In 1898 he became a university drawing teacher in Jena. In 1899 he received his doctorate. From 1900 he was an assistant at the Botanical Institute in Basel, where he also attended the arts and crafts school and was taught by Franz Schider . At the Karlsruhe Art Academy his teachers were Walter Conz and Hellmut Eichrodt . From 1902 Anheisser was an assistant at the TH Darmstadt .

family

Roland Anheisser was born as the son of the merchant Jacob Anheisser and Bertha Anheisser, nee. Sudhoff born in Düsseldorf. The couple lived with their children in Düsseldorf and Cologne.

Roland Anheisser had two brothers. The older brother Hugo, who became a merchant, emigrated to Chicago. The younger brother Siegfried (born December 9, 1881) was initially also a businessman, later studied musicology and received his doctorate with a thesis on Wagner's Tristan . He later became the director of the Langenberg broadcaster and made a name for himself as a Mozart researcher and translator of Mozart's Italian operas.

Siegfried Anheisser's son was an opera singer (baritone). He had an accident on New Year's Eve 1972 on the stage of the Cologne Opera and died in 1973 from the consequences of the accident.

The early years

As a five-year-old he painted and drew plants and animals. As an eight year old he had a notebook with painted plants and birds. His interest in the world of plants accompanied him all his life, from the quinta at the Royal High School in Düsseldorf he became a plant collector. The moor meadows of Düsseltal and the marshes of the Hammer Wiesen on the Rhine offered a wealth of impressions of nature, interesting animals and plants. Because he was not allowed to become an artist, he started an apprenticeship as a gardener and later became director of horticulture, changed two companies and then became an apprentice at the Cologne “Flora”. For him "one of the most beautiful gardens" in Germany. Here he learned all areas of horticulture. He was able to live in his grandfather's house in Cologne. On the way to the “Flora” he experienced the old Cologne with different daytime lighting and his desire to capture and paint all of this grew stronger and stronger. He started drawing and watercoloring the beautiful old buildings before he started work in the summer. In his spare time he liked to hike and keep collecting plants. During this time the idea matured in him to choose the science of botany as a career in life. In 1898, Roland Anheisser began studying at the University of Bonn and became a student of natural sciences with botany as his main subject, alongside zoology, anatomy, geology, etc. a.

Here in Bonn he became friends with his teacher Andreas Franz Wilhelm Schimper , the great plant geographer. For him he illustrated his great work "Plant Geography on a Physiological Basis 1898". Schimper was an Alsatian and with him Roland Anheisser went hiking through Alsace, the Breisgau and the Upper Rhine area. In April 1898, Anheisser moved to the University of Jena after three semesters in Bonn. Here it was u. a. Ernst Stahl and Wilhelm Detmer , who influenced him. During this time Ernst Haeckel was the most famous man at the University of Jena. He soon discovered his student Anheisser's talent for drawing and they got along very well. In later years Anheisser dedicated his large table work "Microscopic Art Forms of the Plant Kingdom" to his revered teacher. From the 5th semester onwards, Roland Anheisser became an assistant at the botanical institute in Jena, and he was responsible for painting large blackboards for the botanical lectures. At Stahl, Anheisser did his doctorate "On the aruncoid leaf blade, a contribution to plants to plant biology" for Dr. phil. in December 1899 with magna cum laude. From January 1900, Roland Anheisser lived in Basel, where he turned to artistic work. His Bonn teacher, Karl Friedrich Schimper, became professor of botany in Basel after his return from the German deep-sea expedition "Valdivia". Anheisser became his assistant. Very soon he began illustrating the major scientific publications on Schimper's findings. He also illustrated the book by Hermann Christ "Die Fernkräuter der Schweiz", the "Textbook of Botany" Jena 1904 for universities, the so-called "Bonn Textbook" by Eduard Strasburger , Fritz Noll , Heinrich Schenck and George Karsten; as well as some pictures for the “Textbook of Pharmacology” by George Karsten. The important botanist Dietrich Brandis became aware of Anheisser's work on “Plant Geography” and had him illustrate his great work “Indian Trees”. Sir Dietrich also made connections to London for Anheisser. Anheisser began his actual painting studies in Basel. For this he got free hours from the university, and he also used his free time for this. He began to paint at the arts and crafts school with Fritz Schider , Leibl's friend. He learned lithography and the art of etching from J. Billeter. He later continued these studies at the Karlsruhe Art Academy and in London, where he studied the technique of the famous English etcher James McNeill Whistler .

Anheisser's teacher Schimper died of malaria in 1901. His book on the Valdivia expedition was continued by August Schenk . Through this contact Anheisser came to the Botanical Institute in Darmstadt. He declined an offer from the expedition leader Carl Chun to take over Schimper's position. With that, Anheisser renounced the career of a university professor and decided to live as a freelance artist.

Now he finally turned to artistic work. He painted in a studio in the artists' academy, continued the painting and etching studies he had begun with F. Schider and J. Billeter, and also dealt with medieval architecture. In 1904 he enjoyed a graphic training at the academy in Karlsruhe and painted at the art academy there with Walter Conz , Hellmut Eichrodt , Leopold von Kalckreuth and Hans Thoma .

to travel

The years of traveling, hiking and painting began. Anheisser systematically wandered through the Lower Rhine area, Baden-Württemberg, Alsace, Thuringia, the Odenwald, the whole area around Darmstadt, all of Switzerland and many areas of the Alps as far as Tyrol and Austria. A total of 10,000 drawings and watercolors were created, which he later used to make his etchings and to illustrate his books. In 1910 Roland married Anheisser. During his later visits to Jena, he met Margarethe von Hase, a daughter from the Breitkopf & Härtel music publishing house . She was the daughter of Oscar von Hase and granddaughter of the Jena church historian Karl von Hase . Even after the marriage, Anheisser continued the years of traveling with his wife. They came to Italy, Belgium, Flanders and Holland. In 1918 Anheisser bought a house in Jugenheim (today Seeheim-Jugenheim ) and set up a studio and a copper printing shop. This is where the many etchings, lithographs, illustrated books and oil paintings were made. Anheisser also deals with figurative representations, portraits, nudes and dance pictures, also as etchings. Except for a few, these works were burned. In December 1942, the Anheisser house burned down to the ground as a result of the war, and most of Anheisser's life's work was destroyed. Neighbors and daughter helped to save some of the pictures, including some of the copper plates on which Anheisser made his etchings. Anheisser never got over the loss of his main work. He died six years later, on March 16, 1949, shortly after his home was rebuilt.

Roland Anheisser was a member of the German Association of Artists , to which he belonged until its forced dissolution in 1936.

Works

Public ownership of his works:

Germany

• Cologne City Museum : approx. 1100 sheets: Architectural evidence of medieval houses to the right and left of the Rhine (drawings, pen drawings and watercolors. Not yet recorded or not accessible). Ditto approx. 500 drawings, pen drawings and watercolors of medieval buildings in Cologne. Captured with images in the Rhenish Image Archive of the Cologne City Museum.
• University of Frankfurt : approx. 250 plant drawings / pen drawings and watercolors.
• Some sheets in the Germanisches Museum in Munich with the preservation of monuments in Bonn, Munich, Karlsruhe, Freiburg, Rüdesheim and Goslar. State curator Mainz, in the Frankfurt Historical Museum, State Museum Darmstadt

Switzerland

• Burgerbibliothek Bern: 145 sheets of pencil drawings.
• approx. 65 sheets in other museums.
• Various oil paintings, watercolors, pencil and pen drawings, etchings and plates in private ownership.
• approx. 200 oil paintings destroyed in a house fire.

Publications

Illustration of botanical works

• E. Strasburger: Textbook of botany. Jena 1903.
• G. Karsten: Textbook of the pharmacognosy of the plant kingdom. Jena 1903.
• D. Brandis: Indian Trees. London 1906.

Own books and portfolios

• About the aruncoid leaf blade. A contribution to leaf biology. Dissertation, 1899
• Microscopic art forms of the plant kingdom. Küthmann, Dresden 1904
• Picturesque architecture sketches. Portfolio. Kanter & Mohr, Berlin 1904
• Ornament and book decoration. Portfolio in a slipcase. Küthmann, Dresden 1905
• Old Swiss architecture / Architecture Suisse. Binder collection (bilingual). Francke, Bern 1906–1907
• Picturesque architecture in Tyrol. Portfolio. Keller, Frankfurt 1908
• Old Swiss architecture. New episode. Franke, Bern 1910
• Old Cologne architecture. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1911
• Flanders and Brabant . Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig 1916
• In Upper Alsace. Thirty cityscapes and landscapes based on original etchings. Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig 1917
• My Cologne. Pictures by a German painter. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1926
• Picturesque Rhineland. Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig 1930
  • Picturesque Rhineland. Selected and introduced by Werner Jüttner. Koehler's publishing company , Biberach 1961
• The medieval house in lands of German origin. Strecker & Schröder, Stuttgart 1935. Again: Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 1937
• Nature and art. Memories of a German Painter. Biography. Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 1937
• The German Alsace. Art and landscape in their picturesque beauty. Pictures and walks. Ludwig Kichler, Darmstadt 1941. 2nd edition 1942; again ibid. 1988 (13th - 22nd thousand.)

literature

• Anheisser, Roland in: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. First volume (AD) , EA Seemann, Leipzig 1999 (study edition). ISBN 3-363-00730-2 (p. 54)
• Botany science art. Plant drawings by Roland Anheisser. Exhibition catalog. Published by the Senckenberg Library. Exhibition and booklet Helmut Burckhardt with contributions by Rosemarie Mann and Roland Anheisser. March 1988.
• Reichs Handbuch der Deutschen Gesellschaft - The handbook of personalities in words and pictures , first volume. Deutscher Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1930, pp. 26/27, ISBN 3-598-30664-4 .
• Nature and art. Autobiographical work by Roland Anheisser, 2nd edition, Verlag von Hase & Koehler, Leipzig 1937.

Web links

• Literature by and about Roland Anheisser in the catalog of the German National Library
• Website about Roland Anheisser

Individual evidence

1. ↑ For Zittel's manual of palaeontology , Schenk took over the publication of the phanerogams in continuation of Schimper's work on spore plants , giving more precise information to other researchers about his opinion about the flora boundaries.
2. ↑ kuenstlerbund.de: Full members of the Deutscher Künstlerbund since it was founded in 1903 / Anheisser, Roland ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on January 25, 2016) 
3. ↑ 1936 forbidden pictures , exhibition catalog for the 34th annual exhibition of the DKB in Bonn, Deutscher Künstlerbund, Berlin 1986. (p. 98: Directory of members 1936)
4. ↑ in the following titles, the frequent word "German" stands out
5. ↑ with list of places and names in the appendix p. 159