Wilhelm Schmid (painter, 1812)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wilhelm Schmid: Portrait of the young lawyer Friedrich Carl Theodor Schmeltzer from Trier. (Detail) 1838, oil on canvas, 90 cm × 68 cm. City Museum Simeonstift Trier. Inv.-No .: III 1639
Wilhelm Schmid: Portrait of the secret government councilor Jacob Christian Schmeltzer from Trier. 1840, oil on canvas, 70 cm × 58 cm, published as a frontispiece in: Trierisches Archiv , Supplement II, Trier 1901.
Carl August Schwerdgeburth after Wilhelm Schmid: portrait of the poet Friedrich Schiller. Before 1840, copper engraving, 44.4 cm × 34.5 cm, City Museum Simeonstift Trier.
Wilhelm Schmid: Portrait of the casino director Johann Josef Reiff. 1848, oil on canvas, 63 cm × 55 cm. Middle Rhine Museum Koblenz.
Typical signature with the monogram “WS”, here portrait of Reiff.

Wilhelm Schmid (born April 25, 1812 in Berlin , † January 10, 1857 in Koblenz ) was a German painter , above all a portraitist .

Live and act

Origin and education

(Friedrich) Wilhelm Schmid was the youngest of five children of the painter Peter Schmid and his wife Barbara Maria, born in Saarburg. The family originally came from Trier , but moved to Berlin in 1810. The father Peter Schmid made a remarkable career there as a reformer of drawing lessons in theory and practice, as a specialist writer and as a portraitist and was awarded the title of professor. He gave his children an intensive artistic education, which led Wilhelm Schmid and his brother Carl Friedrich (Ludwig) Schmid (Stettin 1799 - 1885 Florence) to the desired career choice as a painter. Whether Wilhelm Schmid also attended the Kgl. Studied Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin remains open. In any case, he was not appointed a full member of the Academy.

Artistic career in Berlin

Wilhelm Schmid specialized in portrait painting , which met with extremely high demand in the first half of the 19th century. In addition to the court, the new stratum of a strengthened and self-confident bourgeoisie became the portrait painters' main clients. In the period from 1820 to 1850, around 3500 portraits by 470 painters (only oil paintings, not counting other techniques and miniatures) were found for the city of Berlin. Wilhelm Schmid also benefited from this boom. From 1834 he regularly took part in the Berlin Academic Art Exhibitions, "the central and gathering point of Berlin's art life" (Rosenberg). At the time he was referred to as the “painter of Berlin”, known for numerous portraits, half-length busts and knees, some of them life-size. His oil paintings that have been handed down casually fit into the type of realistic Biedermeier society portrait , shaped by the new refinement of the simple and natural. Balanced calm and reserved seriousness carry the mood. The models pose large figures in front of a dark background, the light is concentrated on the head in order to bring the face to the best possible effect. An example is the portrait of the young Trier lawyer Friedrich Carl Theodor Schmeltzer, who had just completed his law studies in Berlin and later worked as a district judge in Trier. Two years later, Wilhelm Schmid also portrayed his father, the Trier landowner and chief administrative officer Jacob Christian Schmeltzer, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his service and the award of the title of "Privy Councilor".

The Schiller portrait

Towards the end of the 1830s, while still in Berlin, Wilhelm Schmid created a Schiller portrait that entered the picture discourse on Friedrich Schiller as the “Schmid type”. Sitting in a forest arbor, Schiller has just interrupted his reading and is listening to the voice of nature with an upturned look. Schmid let the poet act like a second Jean Jacques Rousseau in the popular French depictions of the early 19th century. The transfer to the German area was regarded as groundbreaking, especially since Schiller had enthusiastically received Rousseau's writings in his youth. Schmid's original oil painting is now considered lost. Before 1840, however, it had been converted into a widely used engraving by the Weimar court engraver Carl August Schwerdgeburth .

In the Rhine Province

After several portraits in Trier, Wilhelm Schmid moved his residence there around 1840 and also took part in the Trier trade exhibition in 1840 with four portraits not specified in the catalog. A little later he moved on to Koblenz, at that time the seat of the Upper Presidium of the Rhine Province with a financially strong entourage and a stronghold of Rhine tourism. From 1844 until his early death in 1857, the address books of the city of Koblenz list the "painter" Wilhelm Schmid with changing addresses. The portrait of the casino director Johann Josef Reiff from Koblenz, made in 1848 and previously only listed as “Monogrammist WS”, proves him as an excellent portraitist. Insofar as the few biographical details mention Wilhelm Schmid's activity as a drawing teacher, there is no evidence of employment in the public service, for example at the Royal High School in Koblenz. However, he gave private painting and drawing lessons. His most prominent student was Princess Luise of Prussia , who lived in Koblenz from 1850 until her wedding in 1856 with Friedrich I. Grand Duke of Baden.

Works

Wilhelm Schmid signed mostly very cautiously and only with his monogram "WS", which makes the assignment to the painter much more difficult. Currently, only a few work can be reliably proven.

  • 1834: Canova's lifting. Academic art exhibition Berlin.
  • 1834: Rotunda in the Royal Museum.
  • 1836: Female knee. Academic art exhibition Berlin.
  • 1838: A family portrait. 6 feet wide by 5 feet high. Academic art exhibition Berlin.
  • 1838: Several portraits.
  • 1838/1840: Portrait of the poet Friedrich Schiller, oil painting, lost.
  • 1838: Portrait of the lawyer Friedrich Carl Theodor Schmeltzer, Trier. City Museum Simeonstift Trier.
  • 1839: Portrait of Anna Johanna Lintz née Grach, Trier.
  • 1839: Portrait (attributed) of the businessman Johann Baptist Grach, Trier.
  • 1840: Portrait of the secret councilor Jakob Christian Schmeltzer, Trier.
  • 1840: Portrait of Major General von Hüser, Commander of the 16th Division. Academic art exhibition Berlin.
  • 1840: 4 portraits, Trier trade exhibition.
  • 1848: Portrait of the casino director Johann Josef Reiff, Koblenz. Middle Rhine Museum Koblenz.

literature

  • Friedrich Mohr: On the history of the Schiller pictures. Krabben'sche Buchdruckerei Koblenz 1860.
  • Georg Kasper Nagler: Neues Allgemeine Künstler-Lexikon , Volume 15, Munich 1845, unaltered reprint, Linz 1910, p. 367.
  • Binder: Schmid, Peter. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 31, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1890, pp. 689-692.
  • Adolf Rosenberg: The Berlin School of Painting: 1819 - 1879. Studies and reviews. Berlin 1879.
  • Kate glasses: The portrait in Berlin Biedermeier. Part 1, Berlin undated (1932); Part 2: Berlin portraitists 1820–1850. Attempt at cataloging. Berlin undated (1929), p. 68.
  • Ulrich Thieme / Felix Becker: General encyclopedia of the fine arts from antiquity to the present. Leipzig 1999 (reprint of the 1935 and 1936 edition), Volume 30, p. 168.
  • Joachim Grossmann: Artists, Court and Bourgeoisie - Life and Work of Painters in Prussia 1786–1850. Berlin 1994, Simultaneously: Essen, Univ. Diss., 1992.
  • Klaus Fahrner: The image discourse on Friedrich Schiller. Publications of the Archives of the City of Stuttgart, Volume 82. Stuttgart 2000. pp. 124-134.
  • Bénézit: Dictionary of Artists , Volume 12, Éditions Gründ, Paris 2006, p. 668.
  • Saur: General artist lexicon. Bio-bibliographical index A – Z, 2nd edition, Volume 10, Munich, Leipzig 2008, p. 815.

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Schmid (painter, 1812)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to information from the Catholic Cathedral Parish Office of St. Hedwig Berlin from March 20 and April 24, 2014, an entry in an extract from the register under serial number 311 shows the previously unknown date of April 25, 1812 for the birth of "Friedrich Wilhelm Schmidt". Since the associated register book is lost, it is no longer possible to check whether it could possibly also be the date of the baptism. (The surname Schmid is also given in the spelling "Schmidt" at the time).
  2. ↑ Theodor Wunderlich: Peter Schmid's life and works. With special consideration of its importance for the development of body drawing and presented on the basis of previously unpublished sources. With the portrait and the handwriting of Peter Schmid. Dresden 1888. Here p. 20 with brief biographical information on the painter's children, including Wilhelm Schmid and Carl Friedrich Ludwig Schmid, who was appointed professor in Aachen.
  3. ↑ His name is not listed in the list of full members: Historical Archive of the Academy of Arts in Berlin; http://www.adk.de/de/akademie/lösungen/träger-datenbank.htm?dosearch=1&allmg=1&sq=Schmid&status=&sektion=&epoche=&von=1812&bis=1900&volltext=
  4. ↑ Kate glasses, as in Lit. Verz. Part 1, p. 26.
  5. ^ Wilhelm Schmid: Portrait of Friedrich Carl Theodor Schmeltzer, signed and dated: "WS 1838", oil on canvas, 90 cm × 68 cm. City Museum Simeonstift Trier. The biographical data on Friedrich Carl Theodor Schmeltzer (1814–1895) according to: Carl Bittmann: Jacob Christian Schmeltzer and the Achard'sche Departements-Zuckerfabrik in St. Agnetenkloster in Trier in the year 1811–1814. Trierisches Archiv - Supplement II, Trier 1901, pp. 64–66.
  6. ^ Wilhelm Schmid: Portrait of Jacob Christian Schmeltzer, signed and dated: “Wilh. Schmid-Berlin pinx. 1840. “Published as frontispiece in: Carl Bittmann, as above. On Jacob Christian Schmeltzer (1770–1864) also: Gabriele B. Clemens: Die Notabeln der Franzosenzeit. In: Elisabeth Dühr and Christl Lehnert-Leven (eds.): Catalog handbook for the exhibition "Under the tricolor - Trier in France ... Napoleon in Trier", Trier 2004, Volume 1, pp. 170–171.
  7. ^ Information from the Schiller National Museum - German Literature Archive in Marbach from February 1, 2005.
  8. ^ Engraving, before 1840, 44.4 cm × 34.5 cm, inscribed: “Gem. v. W. Schmidt (sic), d. V. CA Schwerdgeburth, pressure v. FA Zehl in Lpz ". City Museum Simeonstift Trier, Inv. No. V 609.
  9. ^ The catalog of the Academic Art Exhibition Berlin 1840 has the addition: "Wilhelm Schmid from Berlin, Luisenstrasse 21, now in Trier." Also the "Directory of the commercial products exhibited in the local theater hall: Commercial exhibition in Trier in 1840". Trier 1840, p. 8, lists Wilhelm Schmid as “Painter in Trier” with four portraits on display.
  10. ↑ The address books list, among other things: for 1844 - Rheinzollstrasse; for 1852 - Neustadt 18; for 1853 - Schanzenpforte 6. http://www.dilibri.de/rlb/periodical/pageview/47610?query=Schmid%20wilhelm
  11. ^ Wilhelm Schmid: Portrait of Johann Josef Reiff, signed and dated "WS 1848", oil on canvas, 63 cm × 55 cm. Middle Rhine Museum Koblenz, Inv. No. M 264. Listed in: Klaus Weschenfelder: Inventory catalogs of the Middle Rhine Museum Koblenz, Volume VI: The paintings, watercolors and drawings of the 19th century, Koblenz 1999, p. 99.
  12. ↑ The address books of the city of Koblenz list "Gotthard" as a drawing teacher at the Royal High School. So also Julius Meier-Graefe: Hans von Marées, Volume 1, p. 56, note 33.
  13. ↑ Theodor Wunderlich, as above
  14. ^ Directory of the works of living artists at the exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts in Berlin in the state exhibition building: born in 1834, p. 57; Jg. 1836, p. 63; Born in 1838, p. 52.
  15. ↑ Portrait of Anna Maria Lintz née Grach, wife of the merchant and landowner Johann Jakob Lintz, signed and dated: "WS 39", oil painting, 51 × 44 cm and (attributed) portrait of her brother, the merchant and wine wholesaler Johann Baptist Grach, without Signature, oil painting, 50 × 44 cm. Both listed in: Catalog of the portraits exhibition: Trier 100 years ago. Trier 1929, p. 42 (No. 39 and 40).
  16. ^ Helmut Börsch-Supan: The catalogs of the Berlin Academy exhibitions 1786–1850, Berlin 1971, register volume p. 82.
personal data
SURNAME Schmid, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter, especially portraitist
DATE OF BIRTH April 25, 1812
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH January 10, 1857
Place of death Koblenz