Simon master

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Self-Portrait with Hat (1832)

Simon Meister (born December 20, 1796 in Koblenz , † February 29, 1844 in Cologne ) was a German painter .

Life

Simon Meister was born in Koblenz in 1796 as the son of a saddler . He may have learned his father's craft and received his first private drawing lessons in his hometown before moving to Paris . There he studied painting with Horace Vernet . After a scholarship from the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III. had expired, Meister returned to Koblenz in 1828, where he married.

During these years, he mainly created portraits of Koblenz citizens. Master's attempts to get orders from the Prussian king were only partially successful, despite the support of Alexander von Humboldt , and his efforts to get a job at an academy failed.

Grave slab at the Melaten cemetery in Cologne

Around 1833 he moved with his family to Cologne, where he died in 1844. Contemporaries suggested that he had a drinking problem in the last few years of his life. In the obituary for him, an abdominal infection is given as the cause of death.

Master's subjects were portraits , battle scenes and animal fights. Religious topics apparently played no significant role in his work, his depictions of the Cologne Carnival are of cultural and historical importance . A commercial undertaking was the panorama, painted together with his brother, showing the passage of the French troops over the Rhine in 1797, which was accessible in Cologne against admission. It was supposed to be brought to Paris later, but this did not happen after Meister's death. Numerous pictures of the master were also reproduced as lithographs. He is considered one of the most important Rhenish painters of the Biedermeier period .

His grave is in the Melaten cemetery in Cologne (lit. J, between lit. A + B).

family

Simon Meister's half-brother Nikolas (Nicolaus?) Meister (1809–1883) and his son Ernst Meister (1832–1904) were also painters.

Works (selection)

Death of Adolf von Nassau at the Battle of Göllheim , 1829
Napoleon on horseback , 1832

Impact history

A lithograph by Franz Kellerhoven based on the self-portrait of the painter Simon Meister.

Wilhelm Kleinenbroich (1812–1895) is one of the master's students .

The writer Otto Brües processed the life story of Meister in the 1949 novel Simon im Glück .

A street in Cologne-Nippes is named after him.

literature

  • Stéphanie Baumewerd: Master, Simon . In: Bénédicte Savoy, France Nerlich (ed.): Paris apprenticeship years. A lexicon for training German painters in the French capital . Volume 1: 1793-1843 . Berlin / Boston 2013, pp. 197-200.
  • The circular painting of the most beautiful point of the Middle Rhine, from Ehrenbreitstein to Hammerstein, painted by the brothers Simon and Niklas Meister: enlivened by the fourth Rhine crossing of the French under General Hoche in 1797, topographically and historically explained; with a clear historical introduction and outlines of a biography of General Hoche . Bachem, Cologne 1841 digitized
  • Johann Jakob Merlo :  Master, Simon . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1885, p. 263 f.
  • Klaus Weschenfelder (Ed.): Simon Meister 1796–1844 . Exhibition catalog and catalog raisonné, Koblenz 1994.
  • Otto Brües: Simon in luck . Gütersloh 1949 (a novel depicting the life story of Meister, not a scientific investigation).

Web links

Commons : Simon Meister  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Johann Jakob Merlo:  Meister, Simon . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1885, p. 263 f.
  2. ↑ Description printed in Cologne in 1841. Digitized
  3. ↑ An equestrian portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte , sales result on the artnet.de portal , accessed on August 16, 2013
  4. ^ Andreas Schroyen: Düsseldorf - The most beautiful city on the Rhine , Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2012, ISBN 978-3-95400-118-7 , p. 69
personal data
SURNAME Master, Simon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH December 20, 1796
PLACE OF BIRTH Koblenz
DATE OF DEATH February 29, 1844
Place of death Cologne