Salomon Gessner

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Anton Graff : Salomon Gessner , 1765/1766
Anton Graff: Judith Gessner-Heidegger , 1765/1766
Gessner, Bukolic Scene 1767
Salomon Gessner, painting by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein , around 1787, Gleimhaus Halberstadt
Gessner Memorial in Platzspitz Park

Salomon Gessner (born April 1, 1730 in Zurich ; † March 2, 1788 ibid) was a Swiss idyllic poet , painter and graphic artist .

Life

Salomon Gessner's father, Hans Konrad Gessner, was a printer, bookseller, publisher and member of the High Council of Zurich, his mother was Esther Hirzel. From 1736 until his death, Salomon Gessner lived in the Zum Schwanen house at Münstergasse 9 in Zurich's Niederdorf, which his father had bought . In 1749 he began an apprenticeship in a bookshop in Berlin , which he broke off the following year. Then he occupied himself with landscape painting and the art of etching . After a short stay in Hamburg , where he was influenced by Karl Wilhelm Ramler and Friedrich von Hagedorn , he returned to his hometown.

Gessner's inclination to work in his father's business was slight. He wanted to draw , paint, poetry much more and enjoy life with his friends. He joined the Tuesday Compagnie , a group of around 20 young men from Zurich's leading families. The association met every Tuesday to exchange ideas and socialize, in winter alternately in the parents' houses and apartments, in summer in a clubhouse outside the city on a vineyard in Selnau. The young aesthetes were gripped by a passion for nature, and based on the idyllic shepherd poetry of antiquity, they saw themselves as Sihl shepherds .

Gessner soon managed to make a name for himself with his song by a Swiss to his armed girl (1751) and his painting Die Nacht (1753). He drew the idea for his larger poem Daphnis (1754) from Jacques Amyot's translation of Longos . The first collection of his Idyllen , which appeared at the same time as his Inkel and Yariko in 1756 , was followed by Abel's death , a kind of idyllic heroic poem in prose, in 1758 , and a collection of his poems in four volumes in 1762 . Restrained from poetry by painting, he did not publish a second volume of Idyllen and the letters about landscape painting until 1772 . As a "painter-poet", Gessner was the embodiment of the amateur and self-taught.

In 1761 he was a co-founder of the Helvetic Society and married Judith Heidegger , the daughter of the publisher and competitor Heidegger and the niece of the mayor Johann Konrad Heidegger , against the will of his father . In the same year he became a partner in Orell & Co. and, in 1763, artistic director of the porcelain and faience manufactory in Schooren in Kilchberg. Gottfried Keller mentioned his artistic activity in the manufactory in the Zurich novellas in the volume Der Landvogt von Greifensee . Heinrich Angst was a major collector of “Zurich porcelain” .

Gessner's daughter Dorothea was born in 1763, his son Conrad in 1764. In 1765 Salomon Gessner was elected to the Great Council of the City of Zurich as a member of the Zunft zur Meisen and in 1767 to the Small Council. In 1768 he was elected Obervogt von Erlenbach. His son Heinrich was born. In 1776 he became chief bailiff to the four guards and von Wipkingen .

From 1781 until his death, Salomon Gessner, as "Sihlherr", was the supreme administrator of the Sihlwald and responsible for supplying the city of Zurich with firewood. In the summer months he lived in the forester's house, which is still preserved today.

In his house at 9 Munstergasse he received an illustrious crowd of visitors and guests; Among other things, the artist family Mozart was his guest in 1766 .

In 1780 he founded the Zürcher Zeitung , from which the Neue Zürcher Zeitung emerged in 1821 .

Gessner's once much-vaunted idylls celebrated a golden age of undisturbed harmony, and although he appealed to Theocritus , he was far more closely related to the Arcadian shepherd world of the Italian-French court poets of the 17th century. He has made lasting merits in landscape painting ; his best works include twelve etched landscapes, which he published in 1770.

In 1799, Wernhard Huber was able to receive all of her deceased husband's works of art and writings from the widow Salome Gessner for the Basler Allgemeine Lesegesellschaft .

Commemoration

Gessner grotto in the Arlesheim Hermitage. After the death of the idyllic poet, painter, draftsman, politician and publisher (founder of the NZZ 1780) Salomon Gessner, the grotto was transformed into the Gessner grotto.
Gessner grotto in the Arlesheim Hermitage
Memorial stone in the Gessner grotto from the Ermitage Arlesheim. The memorial stone with name, lyre (symbol for singers) and palette (symbol for painter), downward-pointing torch (symbol for mourning) and laurel wreath (symbol for fame). The memorial stone was restored in 1811 after being destroyed in 1793.
Memorial stone in the Gessner grotto from the Ermitage Arlesheim

The Gessner memorial created by Alexander Trippel , one of the first patriotic monuments in Switzerland, was erected in Zurich's Platzspitz complex at the confluence of the Sihl and Limmat rivers in 1792/1793 . The Gessnerallee, which originally ran to Platzspitz, and the Gessner Bridge, built in 1893, which connects Kasernenstrasse with Gessnerallee, are named after him. In honor of his wife Judith Gessner-Heidegger, the city council of Zurich named a place on Gessnerallee on January 18, 2006.

A memorial plaque in honor of Gessner adorns his former home at 9 Münstergasse.

In 1788 a memorial stone on the south side of Lake Klöntal , which can still be viewed today, was dedicated to him.

A stone Gessner bust was erected in the Holy Halls in the Tharandt Forest near Tharandt at the end of the 18th century and made from cast metal after the destruction in Lauchhammer . Although it has not survived, it is shown in contemporary illustrations by Tharandt in the 19th century.

In Bad Durkheim a "Gessnertempelchen" was set up. After its first destruction in 1834 and later complete destruction in 1856, the place in the forest area was named "Am Tempelchen".

Literary influences

Gessner himself names some of his favorite poets in the section The Desire from the Idylls :

"Should I name the few? You creative Klopstok , and you Bodmer , to whom you and Breitingern set up the torches of criticism to face the will-o'-the-wisps who seduce you into swamps or arid wastes. And you Wieland , (your muse often visits her sister, the serious world wisdom, and fetches sublime material from her most secret chambers, and forms it into delightful gritties) often your songs should sweep me away in sacred delight; You too, more painful of Kleist , your song delights me gently, like a bright sunset, then my heart is at peace, and quiet, like the region in the shimmer of the moon; you too Gleim , when you sing the smiling feelings of our hearts and innocent jokes - - But should I call you all you few? the spoiled nation misjudges your worth, to appreciate you is reserved for a better posterity. "

Works

All of Gessner's writings were self-published in Zurich from 1777–1778 (2 volumes, as digital copies at the Landesbibliothek Oldenburg ; in a new edition, Leipzig 1841, 2 volumes) and were also translated into French (Paris 1786–1793, 3 volumes, and more often) . His correspondence with his son appeared in Bern and Zurich in 1801. Juliane Giovane translated the idylls into Italian.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Note: Your ancestor Heinrich Gessner was a cousin of Conrad Gessner . Johannes Gessner is descended from Heinrich's brother Hans .
  2. ↑ A sketchbook sheet by Salom Gessner
  3. ↑ Visit to Salom Gessner in Shilwald
  4. ↑ Salomon Gessner- From amateur to self-taught
  5. ^ Heinrich fear: Zurich porcelain. In: Schweizer Illustrierte , Vol. 9, 1905, pp. 2-19.
  6. ↑ a b Gang dur Alt-Züri: The Gessner Bridge. Retrieved December 19, 2008
  7. ↑ Paul Wernle: 1799, estate of Gessner. Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde, Vol. 20, 1922., accessed on May 28, 2020 .
  8. ^ Wilhelm Adolf Lindau: Rundgemählde der area von Dresden ... , Volume 2. Arnoldische Buch- und Kunsthandlung, Dresden 1820, p. 158 ff. And 1822, p. 178 ff.
  9. ↑ 1787, The Gessner Temple
  10. ↑ Gessner, Salomon: Idyllen. Critical edition, edited by E. Theodor Voss, Stuttgart: Reclam 1973, p. 69.
  11. ^ Benedetto Croce : La Duchessa Giovane. In: Rassegna Pugliese. September 30, 1887, pp. 275f. Rassegna Pugliese (PDF file; 3.54 MB)

Web links

Commons : Salomon Gessner  - Collection of Images
Wikisource: Salomon Gessner  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Gessner, Salomon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Geßner, Salomon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss idyllic poet, painter and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH April 1, 1730
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH March 2, 1788
Place of death Zurich