Wilhelm Meyer (painter)
Wilhelm Meyer (born December 4, 1806 in Zurich ; † October 22, 1848 ibid) was a Swiss officer and stage and architectural painter.
Life
military
Wilhelm Meyer was born the son of the Zurich businessman Heinrich Meyer. At first he followed the wishes of his parents and began commercial training in Zurich, but after a short time he noticed that this job would not satisfy him. He applied as an officer in the French Swiss Guard and began training as an officer in Paris in early 1826 . After only 3 months he received the officer's patent in the Salis regiment. In his free time he was interested in painting and was able to learn to draw and paint in the studio of a Parisian artist.
Four years later, the July Revolution of 1830 took place in Paris . This meant that he at the time as head of the gymnastics school in Saint-Cloud , with the Swiss Guard as a bodyguard of King Charles X had to participate in the street battles. When the king fled, the Swiss Guard accompanied Wilhelm Meyer to Rambouillet . Due to the changed political situation in France, the Swiss Guard was transferred back to Switzerland and Wilhelm Meyer came to the Landolt battalion as an aide major in Basel . In 1832 he resigned from the Swiss Guard and chose the career path of an artist.
Artistic work
In 1832 he emigrated to Munich to be trained as an apprentice for theater decoration painting by Simon Quaglio , whereby Wilhelm Meyer also trained in architectural painting and had a formative influence on Wilhelm Meyer's knowledge of perspective. In 1831/1832, at the end of his apprenticeship, Simon Quaglio was commissioned to design the decorations for the newly built theater in Zurich and Wilhelm Meyer played an important part in this work. His apprenticeship ended in March 1834 and he received a very good certificate from his Simon Quaglio.
After completing his training, he was appointed as a decorative painter at the Stadttheater am Lorenzer Platz in Nuremberg in 1834 , where he received visits from the Swiss architect Gustav Albert Wegmann, among others . After a serious illness, during which his brother Franz was at his side, he returned to Zurich in April 1835 to recover further. In the next few years he worked as a decorative painter at the theater in Zurich, and he also performed decorative work on the stages in Bern, Lucerne and Mannheim. In order not to undergo the physical exertion of stage painting in the future, he decided to devote himself only to architectural painting.
Italy
Due to his poor health, but also for artistic reasons, he traveled via Munich through Tyrol to Trieste in the spring of 1842 . During his stay there, he made a detour to Gorizia to the court of the expelled Bourbons . Through letters of recommendation and in his capacity as a former guard officer of the Swiss Guard, he got in touch with the Duke of Angoulême and Henri d'Artois , Duke of Bordeaux, with whom he was accepted and who made him further recommendations. He traveled on to Venice , where he made the acquaintance of the artists Aurèle Robert and the poet Heinrich Wilhelm Stieglitz . From there he continued his journey to Ferrara and Bologna to Ravenna . He arrived in Rome in mid-June 1842 , but due to the summer climate there he stayed only a short time in the city and traveled on to Naples and crossed to Palermo on July 8, 1842 . This first stay in Palermo lasted four months and he found a place to stay with his compatriot Heinrich Hirzel, who wrote books about Italy. In late autumn 1842 Wilhelm Meyer returned to Rome, where he remained until May 1843, he undertook together with the family Rougemont in the canton of Neuchâtel a trip to Sicily around for Malta , this trip to Palermo passed Messina to Catania and Syracuse and then back to Palermo. There he received a visit from the Bavarian King Ludwig I in July 1844 , who visited him in his studio and bought a picture. Wilhelm Meyer then went to Venice to pursue further painting studies there, he spent the autumn in Florence and from there he drove back to Rome.
Spain
In the spring of 1845 he made the decision to undertake a trip to Spain, and in July 1845 he traveled from Rome via Marseille , Barcelona and Malaga to Granada ; there he drew and painted in the Alhambra for several days before traveling on to Gibraltar . In Córdoba he visited the former mosque Mezquita-Catedral de Córdoba from the 8th century. From there he traveled to Madrid and took a trip to Toledo .
France
In April 1846 he arrived in Paris and decided to stay there permanently. In the meantime he had gained a reputation as a painter and among other things sold several paintings to the Duke of Monpensier . The King of Württemberg, Wilhelm I , also sent an embassy secretary who gave him orders. At the end of July 1847 , he complied with the request of the King of Württemberg to visit him in Stuttgart on his next trip home to Zurich . Wilhelm I bought a finished painting and ordered three more.
In Zurich he presented the paintings and sketches he had made in Italy and Spain in an exhibition.
Meier's appearance was a complete surprise with a series of paintings and drawings which show the art connoisseur and history lover the strangest and most beautiful Arab buildings in Sicily and Spain in the most successful execution, so that, according to the expressions of French critics, the best may add what has been produced in this field of art up to now. Everything that a complete knowledge of perspective, a skilful apprehension of the object, technical skill in representation, deep penetration into the spirit of these wonderful works of art could achieve, is combined in Meier's work. The painted pictures and excellent drawings of the famous mosque at Cordova, the halls and courtyards of the Alhambra royal palace and the Generalise at Toledo are particularly beautiful.
He then traveled to Interlaken to relax further and spent a few weeks there until he returned to Paris in September 1847. Because of the February Revolution in Paris in 1848 , he decided to travel to his family in Zurich for the time being, where he finished his last painting, the Generalife, an Arab summer palace near Granada, which is located in front of the Alhambra, the commissioned work for the King of Württemberg. In June 1848 he traveled again to Interlaken until he went via Geneva, together with his friend Franz Xaver Winterhalter , to Chamonix-Mont-Blanc and from there to his family in Zurich. There he died a few weeks later of a stomach ailment.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ New nekrolog der Deutschen ... BF Voigt., 1850 ( google.de [accessed on October 27, 2017]).
- ↑ Manfred H. Grieb: Nürnberger Künstlerlexikon: Visual artists, artisans, scholars, collectors, cultural workers and patrons from the 12th to the middle of the 20th century . Walter de Gruyter, 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-091296-8 ( google.de [accessed October 27, 2017]).
- ^ Artists 'Society Zurich (ed.): New Year's Journal of the Artists' Society in Zurich (15.1855). Retrieved October 27, 2017 .
- ↑ New Year's Pieces . Edited by the Artists 'Society in Zurich (NF ff .: New Year's Journal of the Artists' Society in Zurich; 1896 ff .: New Year's Journal of the Art Society in Zurich; later: New Year's Journal of the Zurich Art Society). Item 1 ff. 1805 ff . 1805 ( google.de [accessed on October 28, 2017]).
- ↑ digiPress: View of Bayerische Landbötin from Thursday, July 11, 1844. Retrieved on October 28, 2017 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Meyer, Wilhelm |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Meier, Wilhelm |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swiss officer and architectural painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 4th December 1806 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Zurich |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 22, 1848 |
| Place of death | Zurich |