Joseph Selleny

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Joseph Selleny, taken in Sydney, 1858
Portrait of a Native Australian, 1858
Portrait of Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, 1855

Joseph Selleny (also Seleny or Sellény ; born February 2, 1824 in Untermeidling , today Vienna ; † May 22, 1875 in Inzersdorf near Vienna) was an Austrian landscape painter , watercolorist , draftsman and lithographer .

Life

Selleny was born in Untermeidling 34, today Schönbrunner Straße 34, Mödling is often incorrectly given as the place of birth. He studied at the Vienna Academy under Thomas Ender and Franz Steinfeld . Then he went on a study trip through Tyrol and Lombardy to Venice with his painter colleague Eduard Ender . With a scholarship from the Vienna Academy, Selleny was able to make another study trip to Rome and Naples in 1854/55 .

He had made the acquaintance of the Emperor's brother , Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian , who valued and promoted his work. He owed his participation in the Novara expedition , a scientific circumnavigation of the world, largely driven by the Archduke, to this connection . Under the direction of Commodore Bernhard von Wüllerstorf-Urbair , Selleny took part in the Novara expedition, which lasted from April 30, 1857 to August 26, 1859; it began and ended in Trieste .

Selleny's work contributed significantly to the great success of this company: He painted around 2000 watercolors , sketches , studies and drafts about the impressions in the individual stations and countries visited by the frigate SMS Novara , and at the same time replaced the photographer . His impressive and vivid pictures later formed the basis for numerous lithographs for the illustrations of the works for this trip and were shown in newspapers and magazines.

His authentic pictures were made available to a large public through the extraordinarily successful publications on the Novara trip. The vast majority of the 224 illustrations in Karl von Scherzer's particularly successful book are based on Selleny's drawings . After the German edition, an English translation (1862) was published in London shortly afterwards, and another in Italian . An edition of this early bestseller , which later appeared in two volumes (“People's Edition”), was particularly successful and met the interests of the aspiring educated bourgeoisie of the time. The book reached a total of 30,000 copies. According to the Austrian historian Renate Basch-Ritter , the book was the second most successful work of its kind in the 19th century, not only in Austria but in the entire German-speaking area (only Humboldt's multi-volume work Kosmos - Draft of a Physical Description of the World was even more successful).

After the Novara expedition, Selleny accompanied Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian on his travels to and through North Africa , the Cape Verdean and Canary Islands and Brazil . After this trip, Selleny settled as a freelance artist in Vienna, where he was already well known at the time. Selleny also made a name for himself as a gardening architect , the design of the gardens of the Vienna City Park (1862), as well as that of the gardens of Miramare Palace near Trieste, the residence of Archduke Maximilian and Charlotte of Belgium .

In 1873 Selleny received another commission from the imperial family , so he painted the large wall paintings in the imperial villa in Bad Ischl in Upper Austria .

The artist, who mastered many techniques flawlessly, mostly thematized landscapes in his pictures; these were created either as watercolors on site or in the studio based on templates, which were also created on site. “The immediacy of the presentation” was repeatedly praised, which was reinforced by the skillful use of color. His designs for the design of the parks and gardens were rather controversial.

Selleny fell ill and moved to South Tyrol , where the commander of the Novara expedition had also withdrawn at that time. Due to illness, he was unable to complete many pictures, and in South Tyrol he painted, among other things, very impressive landscapes in oil , for example imposing rocky landscapes. His nervous disease forced him to return to Vienna, he was admitted to the mental hospital Inzersdorf near Vienna, where he died on May 22, 1875 at the age of 51.

Selleny found his final resting place in the Vienna Central Cemetery (1-2-5) in an honorary grave dedicated to the City of Vienna. On his tombstone is the inscription: “Academic painter Joseph Selleny, creator of the Wr. City parks ”.

In the second district of Vienna , Sellenygasse is named after him.

Heritage and reception

A considerable part of Selleny's original pictures from the Novara expedition are now in the collections of the Army History Museum in Vienna, the Albertina Graphic Collection and the Austrian Belvedere Gallery ; many more are privately owned. The numerous watercolor studies that authentically document the individual stations of his journey on the SMS Novara and are for the most part in the possession of the Army History Museum are in part also accessible to the public in the permanent exhibition. When studying this part of Selleny's artistic legacy, it turns out that he was interested in coastal and island landscapes, but primarily in depicting types of people.

Selleny, who had painted these pictures on behalf of the Imperial Navy , owned them until the end of his life; according to his own statement, Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian gave them to him as a gift. A legal dispute between the sisters Sellenys (which died childless) and the Imperial and Royal Navy section over the estate led to the division of the images. The portion that the sisters eventually inherited was sold soon after.

In various anniversary years, exhibitions and commemorative celebrations took place on the occasion of the Novara expedition, on the 100th anniversary there was a large exhibition in the Museum of Ethnology in Vienna in 1958 . Smaller exhibitions and events, also on subtopics, took place again and again. As part of the Wiener Festwochen 1967, for example, a catalog was published for a special exhibition entitled: A painter from Meidling sails around the world. Joseph Selleny (1824-1859). 110 years of circumnavigation of the Novara (1857–1859) .

The preoccupation with the Novara trip has not completely subsided in the Internet age. The Austrian gallery Belvedere ("Museum Online"), for example, organized a project for school children based on virtual interviews with the artist Joseph Selleny, in which he shared his experiences from the Novara world tour with the help of the Belvedere's Selleny picture collection.

Miramare Castle

Works (excerpt)

  • St. Paul Island
  • Madeira
  • Mahamalaipur rock temple
  • Aroid group
  • Cape of Good Hope
  • Australian jungle

literature

Web links

Commons : Joseph Selleny  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl von Scherzer: Journey of the Austrian frigate Novara around the earth, in the years 1857, 1858, 1859 under the orders of Commodore B. von Wüllersdorf-Urbair ; it comprised 1258 pages plus an appendix.
  2. ^ Renate Basch-Ritter: The circumnavigation of the Novara 1857-1859 , Academic Printing and Publishing House Graz, 2008.
  3. ^ Manfried Rauchsteiner , Manfred Litscher (ed.): The Army History Museum in Vienna. Graz, Vienna 2000 p. 87.
  4. ↑ Selleny interviews on Museum-Online ( Memento of the original from August 11, 2014 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.museumonline-belvedere07.at
personal data
SURNAME Selleny, Joseph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Seleny, Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian painter
DATE OF BIRTH February 2, 1824
PLACE OF BIRTH Untermeidling , today Vienna
DATE OF DEATH May 22, 1875
Place of death Inzersdorf near Vienna