Theodor Hildebrandt

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Theodor Hildebrandt
Signature Theodor Hildebrandt.PNG
Ferdinand Theodor Hildebrandt in his studio, painting “Othello and Desdemona”, illustration by Wilhelm Camphausen in The Shadows of the Düsseldorf Painters , 1845

Theodor Hildebrandt (born July 2, 1804 in Stettin , † September 29, 1874 in Düsseldorf ) was a German painter and coleopterologist . He was an important representative of the Düsseldorf School of Painting .

Life

Born in Stettin as the son of a master bookbinder, Hildebrandt went to the art academy in Berlin at the age of sixteen in 1820 . Here he was first a student of Johann Gottfried Niedlich , from 1823 then of Friedrich Wilhelm von Schadow . When Schadow was appointed to the Düsseldorf Art Academy in 1826 , Hildebrandt also moved to Düsseldorf together with Julius Huebner , Carl Friedrich Lessing , Heinrich Mücke , Christian Köhler and Carl Ferdinand Sohn . After completing his studies in Düsseldorf, he got a job as an assistant teacher there in 1832. Four years later he was appointed professor, and as such he became an influential lecturer at the Düsseldorf School of Painting.

Hildebrandt was instrumental in founding the Malkasten artists' association . In 1845 Wilhelm Camphausen illustrated him by painting Othello and Desdemona in his studio .

In 1854 he fell ill with a mental illness and since then has only been able to work temporarily. From 1866 to 1869 he once again led a master class. But after it had survived a protracted brain ailment, it no longer achieved its previous meaning. The last few years of his life he was very sick and not a single picture was taken. Hildebrandt died at the age of 70 on September 29, 1874 in Düsseldorf and found his final resting place in the Golzheimer Friedhof .

Hildebrandt was awarded the Red Eagle Order IV class .

Systematic research into the insect fauna of Düsseldorf and the surrounding area began in the 19th century. Theodor Hildebrandt and Julius Eduard Braselmann (1810–1872), teachers at the Evangelical Free School in Düsseldorf, studied the beetle fauna of Düsseldorf from 1830 onwards . In the "Overview of the Beetle Fauna of the Rhine Province" by Arnold Förster , published in 1847, 2747 species of beetles were listed on 120 pages, 1400 of them for the city of Düsseldorf, with Hildebrandt and Braselmann as informants. Hildebrandt owned a very large collection of beetles. In 1851 he was visited by the still student Gustav Kraatz from Bonn, who in 1856 became a founding member of the " Entomological Association Berlin".

Theodor Hildebrandt had eight children, three sons and five daughters. His daughter Friederike Auguste (born August 27, 1837) also became a painter. She married Wilhelm Eduard Voss in 1861. His son Johann Maria Hildebrandt (1847–1881) became a botanist and explorer.

Masterpieces and reception

The Assassination of the Sons of Edward IV , 1835

After he had already achieved some notoriety in 1832 with his historicist genre painting The Warrior and His Child , he achieved his artistic breakthrough in 1835 with the history painting The Murder of the Sons of Edward IV . It illustrates the corresponding plot in the drama Richard III. by William Shakespeare . It was inspired by the painting The Murder of the Sons by Paul Delaroche , created in 1830 and dedicated to the same subject . Hildebrandt traveled to Paris in 1830 to study this picture. The larger version went to the von Spiegel collection in Halberstadt , the smaller one to the collection of Count Atanazy Raczyński in Berlin (now the National Gallery ). This work also became known through the copper engraving by Friedrich Knolle .

All these pictures already show the influence of the Netherlands, which he visited for the first time in 1829, and the school of Gustave Wappers - less the impressions of his Italian trip (1830–31), which were unable to influence his realistic tendency.

Friedrich von Uechtritz judged the painting The Murder of Edward IV's Sons in 1840: “But above all, the two princes of Edward's sons and especially the younger one must be praised as a masterpiece in conception and execution, if one thinks the quiet one to feel the pure and fresh breath of the slumbering child, to see the moist scent of slumber rise from the pores of the higher colored cheeks. [...] "

Ignoring the characteristic of the sentimental and idyllic reinterpretation of a murderous act in the character of the picture, contemporary critics praised the “lifelike” painting of “deceptive truth” in the “lovely” expression of sleeping children. In this sense, Hildebrandt is one of the first pioneers of the realistic direction in Düsseldorf and has just as much merits for his tasteful security in the reproduction of nature, especially in portraits, as for his talent for composing in historical pictures with dramatic content.

Works (selection)

History painting
The Robber , 1829, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin - The figure depicted here was inspired by the "noble robber" Karl Moor in Friedrich Schiller's drama The Robbers . It is in the context of a large number of other depictions of the robber motif in the romantic period.
The warrior and his child , 1832, Alte Nationalgalerie , Berlin
Portrait painting

Illustrations (selection)

literature

Web links

Commons : Theodor Hildebrandt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ (...) Hildebrandt has a very peculiar love of beetles, of which he has already put together an important collection. (...) , in Düsseldorfer Kreisblatt and Daily Anzeiger (No. 277), dated October 11, 1843
  2. ^ JE Braselmann (born March 26, 1810 in Stollberg, † 1872 in Düsseldorf), educator. From August 15, 1829 at the Protestant free school in Düsseldorf, founding member of the "Society for Insect Science" (1866). Informer at Förster. From the beginning he was a member of the Natural History Association Bonn in whose negotiations he published three coleopterological papers in Vol. 1, Vol. 2 and Vol. 6. (…) Karl Hupp sen. Took over his collection of 2400 species in 45 boxes. and it went to the ESK Krefeld integrated with his collection. , at koleopterologie.de, accessed on February 27, 2020
  3. ↑ Theodor Hildebrandt 1804–1874: “Hildebrandt owned a very large collection of Goliathids, Dynastids, Cerambycids, Buprestids and Cetonids.” , On koleopterologie.de, accessed on February 27, 2020
  4. ↑ Bettina Baumgärtel (ed.): The Düsseldorf School of Painting and its international impact 1819–1918 . Michael Imhof Verlag, Peterberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86568-702-9 , Volume 2, p. 181 ff.
  5. ↑ Bettina Baumgärtel, p. 183.
  6. ^ Ute Ricke-Immel: The Düsseldorf genre painting . In: Wend von Kalnein (Ed.): The Düsseldorf School of Painting . Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1979, ISBN 3-8053-0409-9 , p. 151.
  7. ↑ Drawing Fig. 1 by Theodor Hildebrandt , in Ein monstöser Blaps obtusa St. in description and drawing , communicated by JE Braselmann, Düsseldorf, approx. 1850
personal data
SURNAME Hildebrandt, Theodor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH July 2, 1804
PLACE OF BIRTH Szczecin
DATE OF DEATH September 29, 1874
Place of death Dusseldorf