Rudolf Jettmar
Rudolf Jettmar (born September 10, 1869 in Zawodzie near Tarnów , Galicia , † April 21, 1939 in Vienna ) was an Austrian painter and graphic artist .
Jettmar studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and worked at this institution from 1910 until his retirement in 1936 as a professor. In 1929 he succeeded Ferdinand Schmutzer as head of the master class for graphics. Jettmar also taught at the women's art school from 1898, later the Vienna Women's Academy . From 1898 he was a member of the Vienna Secession . Jettmar's work is influenced by that of Max Klinger ; like him, he is regarded as an important representative of symbolism . The hours of the night , Prometheus (1910 and 1916) and the eight etchings of the Cain cycle after Lord Byron are among his most important graphic works. Among other things, the side altar paintings in the church at Steinhof come from Jettmar . Jettmar's main pictorial work The Way of Life from 1909 was destroyed in the war. Jettmar died of complications from a stroke . The Austrian Post dedicated a special stamp to him on the 50th anniversary of his death . In 1954, Jettmargasse in Vienna- Liesing (23rd district) was named after him. The few remaining oil paintings (landscapes, Greek mythology) and etchings are mostly family owned.
Life
Rudolf Jettmar was the son of Karl Jettmar, a salt works administrator. The family returned to their native West Bohemia soon after his birth . His mother died in 1874. Jettmar has been drawing, painting and making music since childhood. In 1885 he moved to Vienna to study music. Against his father's wishes, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna under Franz Rumpler , Christian Griepenkerl and August Eisenmenger . The lack of support from his father put him in a difficult economic position. From 1892 to 1893 Jettmar studied at the Badische Kunstakademie Karlsruhe . He began to deal with the work of Anselm Feuerbach . A trip on foot across the Alps took him to Italy. It was the first of his 28 trips to Italy. Jettmar worked as a decorative painter in Leipzig and Dresden from 1894 to 1895 . In 1895 he was awarded the Rome Prize and spent half a year in Italy. From 1897 to 1898 he completed an academy course in Vienna at the master school for graphic arts at Unger. His first etchings were made.
Jettmar was accepted into the Vienna Secession in 1898 and worked on the Art Nouveau magazine Ver Sacrum . In 1902 he took part in the Beethoven exhibition at the Secession. From 1903 to 1904 he worked on the etching cycle Hours of the Night . He married Maria Mayer in 1907. The marriage resulted in two sons. Also in 1907 he created his side altar mosaics in the Otto Wagner Church “Am Steinhof”. A year later he created a ceiling painting in Palais Wittgenstein in Vienna, which was later destroyed during the war. Jettmar was appointed full professor at the academy in 1910 and took part in the international hunting exhibition with pictures of Hercules. In 1914 his (preserved) ceiling painting was created in the Merano Kurhaus . He worked on the etching cycle for Byron's Cain from 1919 to 1920. His marriage broke up in 1921. In 1924, Rudolf Jettmar became head of the master school for painting and in 1928 head of the master school for graphics. He fell ill in 1934 and had to undergo repeated interventions. Working as a violinist himself, he became an honorary member of the Vienna Philharmonic in 1935 . Jettmar died four years later of complications from a stroke.
Rudolf Jettmar was a member of the German Association of Artists .
plant
The artist was born in the same decade as Munch , von Stuck , van der Velde , Toulouse-Lautrec . He belongs to the generation that carries the art of the turn of the century. In terms of his oeuvre, he is rather a marginal phenomenon of Viennese Art Nouveau , but himself is a central figure of late Viennese symbolism , comparable to Max Klinger from Dresden . He can be classified in an artistic tradition from Böcklin , Feuerbach , Klinger to the Viennese fantastic Ernst Fuchs .
The part of his work most strongly influenced by Art Nouveau are the woodcuts for the bibliophile Art Nouveau magazine Ver Sacrum .
The much larger part of his work is not as directly accessible as the woodcuts mentioned (because they are symbolically heavy and less decorative). The graphic work and the oil paintings require intellectual examination, or at least explanatory words: three main themes: the landscape, the human figure and the myths.
The landscapes are based in part on the childhood impression of the Bohemian primeval landscape, huge rocks and (uprooted) trees form a monumental backdrop. Often the people in it are small, helpless. The deserted evening moods, on the other hand, are friendly, full of calm. It is not about the landscape depiction of Romanticism, but about landscapes of the soul from within the artist (comparable to Böcklin).
The anatomical study sheets have been preserved, the human body is reproduced anatomically exactly, but sometimes extreme "unacademic" mannerist attitudes are sought. The bodies are often thrown down, thrown away, reared up in struggle and anger.
In consistent self-restraint, Jettmar uses myths of antiquity as a subject, by no means in the sense of academic history painting. In retrospect, topics show a relation to the archetypes of psychoanalysis by CG Jung . The myth here is not a fictional prehistory, but an extra-temporal reality. Here the decisions are made ready before the drama begins on our level. In this “out-of-time reality” the fate of man, his will and striving is already laid down.
The two Prometheus etchings from 1910 and 1916 in an unusually large graphically difficult to manage format: Prometheus the philanthropist brought fire (enlightenment) to people, Zeus, the father of the gods, had him forged on the rock as a punishment, the eagle chops him a piece every day the regrowing liver until Hercules saves him - we can rightly assume that the artist sees himself here in the role of Prometheus.
- Eight etchings on Byron's Cain
These sheets, which were created between 1919 and 1920, are to be regarded as the main work of the etched work. Thematically they are related to the Prometheus sheets and the two sheets to Milton's “Paradise Lost” in the rebellion of man against God-given fate.
Lord Byron's epic poem deviates significantly from the biblical story, influenced by the theories of the French naturalist Cuvier. This equates the sequence of several life-destroying earth catastrophes with a newly created flora and fauna. Byron inserts the fate of Cain into a missing giant family.
The revelation of the fallen angel Lucifer shows Cain the rejected creatures of the past. Mankind will also take this path, it was created arbitrarily by the Creator God and will be destroyed again just as arbitrarily. Cain becomes aware of this arbitrariness of the Creator God, enlightened by Lucifer he is now lonely. The fellow human beings, however, continue to live in the illusion of the “good God”. After this realization, Cain slays his deeply religious brother Abel in tragic rebellion against doctrinal beliefs. The separation is now sealed, death in the world.
Byron's work is characterized by religious skepticism, fearless advocacy for intellectual freedom, and rebellion against convenient conformity. This inner attitude can also be assumed with Jettmar, the etchings are far more than mere illustration. Byron's poetic work was translated into the medium of graphics by Jettmar. The modern mindset of existentialism found its expression here in the technique of the old masters.
Individual evidence
- ↑ kuenstlerbund.de: Full members of the Deutscher Künstlerbund since it was founded in 1903 / Jettmar, Rudolf ( Memento of the original from November 10, 2013 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 September 2, 2015)
literature
- Hans Bisanz: Pictures of Light and Dark Myths , exhibition catalog 1989
- Zdrawka Ebenstein: Jettmar, Rudolf. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , p. 428 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Hans Hellmut Hofstätter: Rudolf Jettmar , Vienna 1984
- Simbolismo-Secessione, Jettmar ai confini dell 'impero . Exhibition catalog, Gorizia 1992
- Emmanuel Bénézit : Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs dessinateurs et graveurs. Édition Gründ, Paris 1999, Volume 7, p. 532, ISBN 2-7000-3017-6
Web links
- Literature by and about Rudolf Jettmar in the catalog of the German National Library
- aeiou To the special stamp
- Honorary grave of Rudolf Jettmar at the Vienna Central Cemetery - viennatouristguide.at
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Jettmar, Rudolf |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian painter and graphic artist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 10, 1869 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Zawodzie near Tarnów , Galicia |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 21, 1939 |
| Place of death | Vienna |