Wilhelm Kiesewetter (painter)

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Self-portrait; Holdings of the Museum of European Cultures .

Wilhelm Kiesewetter (* 1811 in Berlin ; † August 13, 1865 in Gotha ) was a German painter and ethnographer . Kiesewetter made two long trips to Scandinavia and to the European and Asian regions of the Russian Empire , where he made paintings and models. This bundle is now in the collection of the Museum of European Cultures . While Kiesewetter's journeys are well documented by his own publications, the stages of his life in Germany are still largely in the dark.

Life

Training and beginning of the artistic career in Berlin

Wilhelm Kiesewetter was born in Berlin in 1811. He received his artistic training as a painter from Carl Röthig , who was a pupil of the painting director of the Royal Porcelain Manufactory , Johann Friedrich Schulze , and from 1821 to 1843 he maintained a drawing school at the Royal Botanical Garden on Potsdamer Strasse. However, it is not certain whether Kiesewetter's training took place there. Although he had not taken any courses at the Prussian Academy of the Arts , he took part in the Academy exhibitions from 1830 to 1838. There he showed a total of eight oil paintings: 1830 A piece of fruit, in oil , 1834 Portrait of a lady, knee , 1836 The bereaved. Night piece , a rural scene , scene in a farmhouse parlor and breakfast , and 1838 Die Wohlthat and the bride and groom in embarrassment . Some of these paintings were purchased by private individuals, but Kiesewetter was unsuccessful in participating in an exhibition in 1838. The painting The Bridal Couple in Embarrassed Money couldn't find a buyer, which is why he gave it to his lover as a present. Due to the difficult economic situation and the desire to make discoveries, Kiesewetter subsequently left his lover and Berlin to go on a journey.

Travels through Scandinavia, European Russia and the Asian regions of the Russian Empire

Kiesewetter undertook two long journeys through Scandinavia , the European and Asian regions of the Russian Empire : the first extended over the eleven years between 1838 and 1849, the second followed from 1850 to 1853. The course of the journey was passed down by himself. He financed the trips by taking portraits , which sold particularly well in Sweden. In order to better understand the cultures he encountered, Kiesewetter tried to learn some of the native languages ​​and used interpreters. In addition, he sometimes tried to attract less attention by wearing local clothing and to find out aspects that he could not observe himself during the interview. Kiesewetter's cultural contacts generally followed the same pattern: first he made contact with the highest-ranking personality and presented his concerns to them. If he received permission from them to live and paint with the group, he made contact with individual people, of whom he wanted to make portraits. The reactions turned out to be different, some refused, while others allowed themselves to be paid or were willing to model.

First journey

Work of the painter Wilhelm Kiesewetter. Stock of the MEK

On June 16, 1838, Kiesewetter set out from Berlin and migrated to Rügen. From there he crossed to Sweden, where he stayed in Ramlösa , Helsingborg , Norrköping , Stockholm and Umeå until the end of 1839 . He then traveled to Finland until February 1841 and stopped there in Vaasa , Torneå , Björneborg , Tawastehus and Wyborg . His travel route then led through Saint Petersburg , where he stayed only three weeks, Moscow , Tula , Ryazan and Nizhny Novgorod , where his stay ended in August 1842. The next stage of his journey took Kiesewetter to Kazan , which marked the easternmost point of his route, Saratov , Penza , Narowtschat , Voronezh and finally Sebastianowka on the Volga .

In March 1844 Kiesewetter stayed in Sarepta in a mission station of the Moravian Brethren . From there, he rode into the steppe region of the Kalmyks before using the station Tschernojar and Eltonsee to the Kazakhs to the Caspian Sea moved on. During the stay with the Kalmyks one of the examples of problems of understanding between Kiesewetter and the local population occurred. He intervened in a ceremonial kidnapping of the bride because he believed the event was real and defended the bride. As an award for his bravery, he had received the bride, but turned down this offer. He stayed on the Caspian Sea for three months and visited the residence of the khan of a Kazak group. Kiesewetter then returned to Sarepta, from where he drove to the Don Cossacks in Novocherkassk . In the spring of 1845 he traveled on to Nakhichevan , an Armenian colony on the Sea of ​​Azov . After long stays in Rostov and Taganrog , Kiesewetter came to the Crimea and spent two years in Simferopol , Bakhchisarai and Gurzuf . His model “ The Palace of the Tartar Khans in Crimea ”, created in 1846, is kept in the Museum of European Cultures . During the two years with the Crimean Tatars , Kiesewetter's adaptation to the culture he observed went particularly far, so that the locals gave him the name Abdullah . In 1847 he crossed from Yalta to the west coast of the Caucasus , where he traveled through the residential areas of the Imerelians and Mingrelians , sub-ethnicities of the Georgians . In 1847 he organized the first exhibition of his pictures in Tiblis . However, according to Kiesewetter, this met with little response. In 1848 Kiesewetter took a camel caravan to Yerevan , the capital of Armenia , which was then part of Russia . From there he rode to Mount Ararat , where he met the Kurds . As a result, he continued his journey via Shemachi to the Persian- populated city of Baku . From there he rode to a temple complex that was inhabited by Indian priests of the Zoroastrian faith.

From the capital of Daghestan , Derbent , Kiesewetter crossed the Caspian Sea to Astrakhan , a city located at the mouth of the Volga. He spent the winter of 1848/1849 in Saratov , from there in the spring of 1849 to undertake a long journey on the Volga to northern Russia with the destination Bjelosersk . Kiesewetter returned to Saint Petersburg via Lake Onega , Wytegra and Lake Ladoga , where he stayed again for a few weeks. He then returned to his home town of Berlin via Stettin after an absence of more than eleven years. There he made contact with the scientific art association, which celebrated its founding anniversary in October 1849 on the occasion of the birthday of its patron Friedrich Wilhelm IV . In this context, the association organized an exhibition that Kiesewetter equipped with the works created on the trip. This exhibition met with a positive response from the guests. An article in the Vossische Zeitung suggested that the collection should be made available to the public in a public exhibition.

Second trip

The source of tears in the palace of the last Tatar Khans

Shortly after his return, Kiesewetter set off on his second trip to paint more pictures and organize exhibitions. This took him back to Scandinavia in June 1850. That year he exhibited works in Stockholm and Gefle , and in 1851 further exhibitions followed in Falun , Hörnosand , Sundswall and Östersund . The exhibition companies have now been carried out in a more professional manner by Kiesewetter. In 1850 he published a catalog in Swedish in Lund , in which the paintings and models were described; Kiesewetter used the name Oriental Art Cabinet as the title of the exhibitions . However, there was little interest in these shows on the part of the Swedish population. He then lived with the Sami people in northern Sweden and Norway for a few months , and then organized further shows of his pictures in Trondheim , Oslo , Drammen , Christiansand and Bergen . He changed the title for this to Ethnographic Travel Pictures . In June 1852 Kiesewetter returned to Sweden, where he still presented his works in Gothenburg , Malmö and Lund. The reasons for the second trip to Scandinavia and the first professional exhibitions of his works there were probably of a personal nature. Kiesewetter stated that he appreciated the friendliness and warmth of his hosts there. He finally returned to Germany in June 1853.

End of life in Germany

After his second return to Germany, Kiesewetter organized exhibitions under the title "Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures" in Hamburg, Altona, Hanover, Leipzig and Dresden, on which he showed his paintings and models and gave lectures. According to Kiesewetter's own statement, these met with a positive response. In February and March 1854 he showed his pictures in Leipzig and Dresden . In both cities he gave a large number of lectures in front of societies and associations such as the Leipzig Artists and Writers Association or the Pedagogical Association in Dresden as well as in schools. In addition, he published about his travels in order to generate even more attention for his projects. In this context, his lectures are also to be located in front of geographical societies. On June 3, 1854, Kiesewetter explained his works to the Society for Geography in Berlin. Its chairman, Carl Ritter, was enthusiastic about the lecture and published a laudatory article in the Spenersche Zeitung . In that year, Alexander von Humboldt , who classified Kiesewetter's work as "an ethnological collection in the true sense of the word ," contacted the Royal Museums, Ignaz von Olfers , the General Director of the Royal Museums .

In addition, despite research, it was not possible to clarify what Kiesewetter was doing between 1855 and 1865. When Wilhelm Kiesewetter died in Gotha on August 13, 1865, he left behind at least 176 oil paintings and twelve residential and settlement models that were created on his travels.

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Artistic creation

Armenian drinks seller

Kiesewetter's early work in Berlin is largely unknown. Apart from the catalog entries for the academy exhibitions, there are no other indications for its evaluation. The whereabouts of the 500 or so portraits he made for clients on his travels is also unknown. The corpus of works that is accessible to research includes 162 oil paintings, ten models and unassigned items that belong to the collection of the Museum of European Cultures . Overall, Kiesewetter's work is viewed from two perspectives: on the one hand, the paintings of art history are considered ethnographic genre painting of the 19th century, on the other hand, ethnology serves as a source for cultural-historical research into the cultures depicted.

In the 19th century many artists went on trips to distant countries, where they were guided either by an interest in knowledge of foreign cultures or by the search for artistic inspiration. Kiesewetter probably set out with the latter intention, but then developed an interest in the cultures he encountered on his journey. He himself formulated the ethnological objective from today's point of view, “to give the larger public an insight into the various facial structures, the manners and customs of diverse, less known and less cultivated ethnic groups; [this] prompted me to study them on many years of wandering and to depict pictures true to life on the spot . ”With this in mind, Kiesewetter painted numerous portraits, even more frequently his pictures contained scenes from everyday life, city and village views, palaces, Houses, churches and their interiors. For a better understanding he added his models to the pictures of houses and settlements. Kiesewetter did not paint depictions of the landscapes he was traveling; they only served as a backdrop for people and buildings.

Kiesewetter's ethnographic position is particularly evident in the paintings in which he depicted himself in the context of the societies he visited. The painting Wilhelm Kiesewetter painting in a Kalmyk yurt from 1844 shows him performing the action with which he captured the foreign cultures that he encountered. In the picture Russian bridesmaids reward the wedding guest for a bridal gift , Kiesewetter showed himself to be a special participant in a strange rite. In other works that show everyday scenes, the artist participates in the everyday life of his hosts. The faithful reproduction by Kiesewetter can be traced back to the Khan palace of Bakhchysarai , which Kiesewetter captured both in paintings and in a model. The palace, which has hardly changed in the interior, largely corresponds to Kiesewetter's depiction. There are also a few other types of buildings recorded by Kiesewetter, even if most of them have disappeared over time. Views like those found in paintings of interiors can still be found in open-air museums in Russia and Scandinavia. The depicted people can be assigned to the individual ethnic groups visited on the basis of their clothing. The documentary value of Kiesewetter's work lies in this representation. Only a few paintings differ. For example, the picture Gypsy girl, preparing a love potion, uses common clichés while the Armenian money changer was portrayed as greedy person. This refers to the always present subjective element in the

Kiesewetter's work was no exception in 19th century art. He can be compared with artists such as Johann Moritz Rugendas , who first accompanied an expedition to Brazil and then toured Central and South America for 16 years, or George Catlin , who was a painter and Ethnographer who recorded the indigenous peoples of the American West, compare. Catlin in particular presented his works in a similar way to Kiesewetter with lectures and exhibitions.

Publications

Wilhelm Kiesewetter published the following four works:

  • Förklaring öfver Modeller, Oljetaflor och sketch uti Konstkabinett, på en mångårig vandring i Orienten. Lund 1850.
  • Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. Berlin 1854.
  • Communications from the diary on Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. Berlin 1854 ( uni-goettingen.de ).
  • The philosopher's stones and the Chinese abacus, the natural basis of arithmetic, according to the oral communication of an Asian arithmetic artist. Gotha 1862 ( uni-goettingen.de ).

In particular with the information from the diary about Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures , he tried to generate additional attention. These were passages from Kiesewetter's diary, which he had already used to explain his paintings in lectures. The book was divided into 16 chapters, in which he dealt with a central theme such as the audience with the Kalmuck princess supplemented by the description of several small incidents. Kiesewetter took an ethnological approach by repeatedly describing his own position, his relationship with his hosts and the circumstances under which he painted. This publication was supplemented by a list of his paintings and models, which were organized in the order of a lecture. This facility once again underlines Kiesewetter's educational claim, who wanted to bring people into contact with foreign cultures at a young age. An example of his work with the Kalmyks is the portrait of a Kalmyks from around 1865 .

Musealization

In 1868, the models made by Kiesewetter entered the ethnological collection of the Royal Prussian Museums as ethnographica. Probably at the same time, the Kupferstichkabinett took over the paintings. In 1876 these were given to the National Gallery when a collection of hand drawings was created there, but received little attention. In contrast, some of the models in the ethnographic exhibition in the Neues Museum were open to the public. In 1910, the Nationalgalerie transferred Kiesewetter's paintings to the Museum of Ethnology , where they were assigned to the Asian collection and the Collection of German Folklore according to their motifs . When the latter became the independent Folklore Museum in Bellevue Palace in 1934 , which only included objects from Germany, 28 paintings with European motifs were transferred to the newly founded Eurasia Department in the Museum of Ethnology. However, the painterly work continued to receive little attention.

In World War II, 15 paintings and three models were probably lost. Most of the stock that had been relocated during the war was brought to Leningrad by the Trophy Commission after the war . In 1975 they were returned to the Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig along with 45,000 other ethnographic items . Between 1990 and 1992 these objects returned to Berlin, where Kiesewetter's works now also received more attention. At the opening of the Museum of European Cultures in 1999, Kiesewetter was also presented to the public from an ethnological perspective.

literature

  • Johan Jakob Tikkanen : Kiesewetter, Wilhelm . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 20 : Kaufmann – Knilling . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1927, p. 275 .
  • Nils Arved Bringéus: En tysk i Rättvik 1851. Reprint from: Svenska landsmål och svenkst folkliv. 2000, pp. 7-44.
  • Phebe Fjellström: Fem nyfunna samebilder från 1851. A comment and analys. In: Kungl. Gustav Adolfs Academies Årsbok. 2001, pp. 121-138.
  • Claudia Niederl-Garber: How Europe “discovered” Armenia. The art history of Armenia becoming known as seen by Western travelers. LIT-Verlag, Vienna / Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-643-50529-3 , pp. 173–177.
  • Elisabeth Tietmeyer : Strangers in Pictures - External Images. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). In: Fascination Image. Cultural contacts in Europe (= series of publications by the Museum of European Cultures, National Museums in Berlin - Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. Vol. 1.) Potsdam 1999, ISBN 3-9806239-2-0 , pp. 173–189.
  • Elisabeth Tietmeyer: Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). Bomann-Museum Celle, Celle 2004, ISBN 3-925902-53-8 .
  • Elisabeth Tietmeyer: The Painter Wilhelm Kiesewetter in the Crimea (1845-1847). In: Barbara Kellner-Heinkele, Joachim Gierlichs, Brigitte Heuer (Eds.): Islamic Art and Architecture in the European Periphery. Crimea, Caucasus, and the Volga-Ural Region. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-447-05753-0 , pp. 109-116.
  • Elisabeth Tietmeyer, Barbara Kaulbach (ed.): The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811-1865) in the Crimea. Goethe-Institut, Kiev 2005, ISBN 966-8680-06-5 .

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Kiesewetter  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Elisabeth Tietmeyer: Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). Celle 2004, ISBN 3-925902-53-8 , p. 6.
  2. ^ A b Elisabeth Tietmeyer: Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). Celle 2004, p. 7.
  3. ^ A b c Elisabeth Tietmeyer: Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). Celle 2004, p. 11.
  4. ^ Elisabeth Tietmeyer: Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). Celle 2004, p. 12.
  5. ^ A b c Elisabeth Tietmeyer: Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). Celle 2004, p. 8.
  6. ^ Elisabeth Tietmeyer: Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). Celle 2004, p. 12 f.
  7. ^ Elisabeth Tietmeyer: Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). Celle 2004, p. 13.
  8. ^ A b c Elisabeth Tietmeyer: Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). Celle 2004, p. 9.
  9. ^ Elisabeth Tietmeyer: Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). Celle 2004, p. 13 f.
  10. ^ A b Elisabeth Tietmeyer: Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). Celle 2004, p. 14.
  11. ^ A b Elisabeth Tietmeyer: Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). Celle 2004, p. 3.
  12. ^ Elisabeth Tietmeyer: Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). Celle 2004, p. 15.
  13. ^ Elisabeth Tietmeyer: Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). Celle 2004, p. 17.
  14. ^ Elisabeth Tietmeyer: Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). Celle 2004, p. 4.
  15. ^ Elisabeth Tietmeyer: Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). Celle 2004, p. 9 f.
  16. ^ Wilhelm Kiesewetter: Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. Berlin 1854, p. 3. Quoted from: Elisabeth Tietmeyer: Kiesewetters ethnographic travel pictures. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). Celle 2004, p. 11.
  17. ^ Elisabeth Tietmeyer: Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). Celle 2004, p. 20.
  18. ^ Elisabeth Tietmeyer: Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). Celle 2004, pp. 21-23.
  19. ^ Elisabeth Tietmeyer: Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). Celle 2004, p. 24.
  20. ^ Elisabeth Tietmeyer: Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). Celle 2004, p. 19.
  21. ^ Elisabeth Tietmeyer: Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). Celle 2004, p. 15 f.
  22. ^ Elisabeth Tietmeyer: Kiesewetter's ethnographic travel pictures. The painter and ethnographer Wilhelm Kiesewetter (1811–1865). Celle 2004, p. 3 f.