Willingshausen painters colony

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In the cemetery of Willingshausen by Gerhard von Reutern, oil on canvas, created in 1842

The Schwalm Willingshausen painters 'colony is the oldest artists' association in Europe. The subjects dedicated to local art in Willingshausen were taken up by Gerhardt Wilhelm von Reutern and Ludwig Emil Grimm in 1824 even before the Barbizon painter's colony near Fontainebleau was founded in 1830 . Willingshausen was a place of study for international artists and contributed to the popularity of Schwalm costumes .

Art historical prehistory of landscape and genre painting in Germany

The art-historical development of landscape painting and the depiction of rural genre scenes was neglected in the history of German painting up to the beginning of the 19th century. The early Renaissance painter Konrad Witz painted the first identifiable landscape in tempera on wood in 1444. The miraculous fishing expedition of Petri of the Musee d'Arts et d'Historie in Geneva . For the first time in occidental painting, the edge of Lake Geneva can still be seen today on the wing of the Petrus Altar picked up as a motif. However, the representation of landscapes in Albrecht Dürer's travel sketches, Lucas Cranach , Hans Baldung Griens , in paintings and engravings by Albrecht Altdorfer , Adam Elsheimer and in drawings and etchings by Wolf Huber found subordinate entry. However, mainly southern German landscapes were shown. In German painting, moreover, there are neither such rich and important works as in Flemish painting of the 16th and 17th centuries, nor in English painting of the 18th century and French painting of the 17th century. However, the influence on German landscape painting by the Englishmen William Hogarth , Thomas Gainsborough , Joseph Mallord William Turner and John Constable , the French Nicolas Poussin , Claude Lorrain , Jean Siméon Chardin and Antoine Watteau and the Dutch Paulus Potter and Jan Steen remain unmistakable. Bourgeois life was only shown again in German painting Daniel Chodowiecki in the 18th century in its numerous copper engravings and animal representations in the landscape of the Mannheim painter dynasty Ferdinand and Franz von Kobell and his son Wilhelm von Kobell . In individual works, the so-called Palatinate School painted pure landscape pictures for the first time in Germany. Since then, this school has been considered the beginning of German landscape painting. The Palatinate School as Nazarenes at the beginning of the 19th century was still under the influence of Italian painting, and the Italian landscapes were far more important to them than the German landscape. German landscapes were rarely depicted until the Tyrolean Joseph Anton Koch founded his school for landscape painting in Rome at the beginning of the 19th century , which Ludwig Richter also supported. Initially ideal was the heroic Italian landscape, but gradually the representation of bourgeois life and the landscape, starting from Koch, developed in Germany. Caspar David Friedrich , Carl Blechen , Ferdinand Johann von Olivier and Moritz von Schwind took up these motifs and spread landscape painting in Germany, Switzerland and Austria . The integration of the peasant genre painting into the landscape painting and the representation of the costumes took place for the first time in Willingshausen.

founding

It was a happy coincidence, but also a personal accident, that an artists' colony was founded in Willingshausen. Gerhardt Wilhelm von Reutern , who as a Russian officer took part in the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig from October 13 to 16, 1813, had his right arm amputated in 1814 as a result of a wound to his right shoulder. He came to his brother's in-laws to convalesce and convalescents in the Schwertzell house in Willingshausen. In the summer of 1814 he first made the acquaintance of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in Weimar . Goethe recognized von Reutern's artistic talent and encouraged him to paint and draw. During two further visits to Willingshausen in 1815 and 1818, he finally began self-taught to depict Willingshausen farmers, maidservants and traditional Schwalm costumes. He met his future wife Charlotte von Schwertzell in Willingshausen and married her in 1820. Gerhardt Wilhelm von Reutern initially settled down in Willingshausen and began to draw and paint for the Imperial Russian family. He received an honorary salary from the Imperial Russian family, which enabled him to be financially independent. Gerhardt von Reutern was the first to recognize the art-historical value of Schwalm costumes , which he took up as a motif in numerous illustrations. Many of his works have since been in the St. Petersburg Hermitage . In 1824 the Kassel professor at the art academy, Ludwig Emil Grimm , the younger brother of the Brothers Grimm , came to Willingshausen to study landscapes. The meeting and exchange of these two artists in the Schwertzell Castle is considered to be the founding year of the Willingshausen painters' colony and at the same time was the beginning of open-air painting in art history. Ludwig Emil Grimm spent more time in Willingshausen in 1826 and 1827. Gerhardt Wilhelm von Reutern created the pen drawing Hute-Eichen in 1829, which he gave to his patron Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The drawing is now in the Weimar Goethehaus .

Classicism and Biedermeier Period

Jakob Fürchtegott Dielmann: Monument to Emperor Charlemagne on the Old Bridge in Frankfurt

Ludwig Emil Grimm visited Gerhardt Wilhelm von Reutern several times in Willingshausen. In 1835 Gerhardt Wilhelm von Reutern became a student of Theodor Hildebrandt at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. In 1841 he brought his friend Jakob Fürchtegott Dielmann with him to Willingshausen, whose work contributed significantly to Willingshausen's status as a place of study. Von Reutern, however, lived alternately in Russia , Germany , Switzerland and Italy . He was friends with numerous painters from Kassel , Düsseldorf and Frankfurt am Main , whom he invited to Willingshausen for study purposes. Initially, the people in their traditional costumes, the farmers, the richly decorated half-timbered houses and only then the landscape as the subject of the painters were in the foreground. In 1844 the Frankfurt painter Jakob Becker came to Willingshausen for the first time to study for his painting The Shepherd Killed by Lightning . The painting is now in the Städel Art Collection in Frankfurt.

Romanticism - Willingshausen becomes an international place to study

Ludwig Knaus: A girl in the field

A five-year period followed, during which no other painter visited Willingshausen, but the graduates of the Düsseldorf Art Academy , the Wiesbaden Ludwig Knaus and Adolf Schreyer came from Frankfurt am Main to Willingshausen for the first time in 1849 . Both sought artistic orientation out of a general lack of stability and perplexity of the political changes in Düsseldorf and Frankfurt. Ludwig Knaus was encouraged to move to Willingshausen by Jakob Becker and Jakob Fürchtegott Dielmann . In Knaus' native Wiesbaden, he had several opportunities to admire the work of Dielmann's Willingshäuser Dorfschmiede from 1845 in a private art gallery. Knaus and Schreyer lived with the landlady Stamm , were introduced to the social conventions by Mayor Korell and were several times guests of Baron Schwertzell at his castle. With their presence in Willingshausen, the nationwide reputation of the Willingshausen artists' colony as a recognized place of study began. In 1861 the American painter ES Andrews became a student of Knaus in Willingshausen.

In 1858 Ludwig Knaus painted the painting The Golden Wedding , in 1867 his picture Highness on Travel and in 1871 The funeral in Willingshausen. Knaus became famous worldwide for his motifs and a large number of German and foreign painters moved to Willingshausen to depict the Hessian landscape and folk life. In the 1860s, Knaus' students, Karl Breitbach and Konrad, came to Willingshausen. During this time the Darmstadt painter Paul Weber , the student of Jakob Becker Karl Raupp , came from Düsseldorf, Heinrich R. Kröh, in 1862 Joseph Minjon , Louis Toussaint , Heinrich Leinweber , Ernst Böker , Georg Schwer , and Lüdecke. The painter Sadee came from The Hague from the Netherlands and the painter Henricks from Arnhem. Jakob Hof traveled from Frankfurt and TR L. Maas from Munich traveled to Willingshausen. In addition to Andrews, John Rosenthal from California, F. Engel from Albany and Rudolf Alody also painted from the United States of America in the painter's village. In 1882 the illustrator Paul Thumann worked in Willingshausen. As a reminder of his time in Willingshausen, he painted a Schwalm girl on the door of the painter's room. In the 1870s, the genre painters Fritz Sonderland and Hermann Sondermann (father) toured Willingshausen from Düsseldorf until the 1890s. The teacher at the Berlin Art Academy of the landscape drawing class, Prof. Bellermann, was also in Willingshausen in the 1890s. Otto Piltz , Woldemar Friedrich and E. Tepper moved from Weimar and Fritz Grebe from Kassel to Willingshausen. In addition, the Frankfurt painter Peter Becker often came to the nearby Wasenberg during this time to work in the Schwalmtal. In 1874 Adolf Lins came to Willingshausen for the first time on the advice of his Kassel teachers.

romance

Adolf Lins: Ducks by the stream

With the arrival of the Kassel painter Adolf Lins , the Willingshausen epoch of romanticism began . In Willingshausen at Gasthaus Haase he met the graduates of the Düsseldorf Academy Hermann Sondermann , Werner Leineweber, Hugo Oehmichen and Nikolaus Barthelmess and the Frankfurt painters Robert Forell and Garbe, the Berlin painter Julius Manthe and Professor Kretschmer, who was the founder of physical geography and natural scientist Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt accompanied on his research trips and was friends with the statesman and scholar Wilhelm Freiherr von Humboldt. Professor Kretschmer reported extensively on his research trips with Alexander von Humboldt in the Willingshausener Malerstübchen. Robert Forell came regularly to Willingshausen until 1915.

Self-portrait by Heinrich Otto

In 1877 Adolf Lins moved to Düsseldorf, around 1883 to return to Willingshausen with his friends Emil Zimmermann , Hans von Volkmann , Otto Mühlig, the Swedish interior painter Anders Montan and Otto Strützel . Here he met the Kassel academy painters Heinrich Otto , Theodor Matthei , Hofmann and Fehrenberg. Since the 1880s, the Englishmen Arthur Bambridge , Carl Freiherr von Ledebur and Fritz Schnitzler came regularly from Düsseldorf to Willingshausen. In 1886 Lins' picture was created, songs without words . The shepherd Hans Hinrich Keller with his flock was one of the painters' favorite models. He immortalized himself in the door of the painter's room in Willingshausen with a goose pull, a dance and a Schwalm children's group. Adolf Lins achieved worldwide fame when he was awarded a gold medal for a goose portrait at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 . This increased Willingshausen's profile again. Until 1908, Adolf Lins came to Willingshausen almost every year, until he finally moved to nearby Röllshausen. In this place he discovered new rural motifs and subjects.

The Kassel painter Heinrich Giebel first came to Willingshausen in 1888 and his Kassel painter colleague Hermann Metz in 1889. They were joined by Heinrich Pierson from Kassel and Bernhard Klapp, who was buried in Willingshausen . In 1889 the landscape painter Karl Bahner came to Willingshausen. In the 1890s, the figure painters Richard Sohn , the son of Hermann Sondermann, Carl Sondermann , the painter Ahrweiler, the Englishman Crawford, Emil Schwabe , Hauptmann a. D. Binte, Friedrich Bindewald from Upper Hesse, who was a member of the Reichstag from 1907 to 1912, and Otto Strützel's pupil, the caricaturist , draftsman and painter Eduard Kaempffer from Münster to Willingshausen. Kaempffer became known for his work in the Erfurt town hall and furnished the album of the painter's room and the Haasescher Saal, which no longer exists today . In 1892 the director of the Kassel Art Academy, Louis Kolitz , sent his students to Willingshausen for the first time . Among them were his son Hans Kolitz , the portrait painter Fritz Rhein and the later member of the Munich session, Hans Fehrenberg . The painters Emil Voigtländer-Tetzner , Paul Poetzsch and Wilhelm Claudius from the Dresden Art Academy worked in Willingshausen at the beginning of the 1890s . Wilhelm Claudius painted a sower in Willingshausen in 1910 . At the end of the 1890s, the Bad Wildunger Franz Defregger student, the moral painter Ludwig Blume-Siebert , often came to Willingshausen. During this time Ernst Gabler also came to Willingshausen, first from Weimar and then from Dresden . Finally, on the advice of Professor Carl Wünnenberg from Kassel, Ernst-Ferdinand Eichler (1850–1895), with whom he spent several years studying in Rome , came to Willingshausen. From July to August 1914 the Kassel painter Paul Scheffer worked in Willingshausen for the "Hessenmalern".

Turning to impressionism

Robert Sterl: Elbe excavator , 1905

The Willingshausen painters were joined by Wilhelm Ritter and Robert Sterl in 1892 , Hans von Volkmann from Halle in 1888, Ziegenhainer Carl Bantzer in 1887 , who (since 1901 art professor) hundreds of students from the Royal Academy of Art in Dresden, initially to Dörnberg and then to Dörnberg Willingshausen fetched. The Herborn painter Wilhelm Thielmann settled in 1887, in 1901 Walter Waentig and Wolfgang Zeller , in 1902 Otto Ubbelohde with his wife, the painter Auguste Schebb , and a student, Ernst Burmeister and Georg Tränkner , in 1903 the Düsseldorf impressionist painter Karli Sohn-Rethel and his brother-in-law Werner Heuser and Sophie Dörr from Kassel , 1905 Paul Schönfeld , 1906 Ludwig Muhrmann and the Hamburg landscape painter Paul Storm , who was again in Willingshausen from 1927 to 1930 and then from 1935, 1907 Rudolf Otto and Reinhard Graf zu Solms-Laubach , 1908 the Hofgeismar painter Hermann Kätelhön , the Bohemian painter Walther Beyermann and the Chemnitz animal painter Wilhelm Rudolph . With Carl Bantzer's participation in the 1904 World Exhibition in St. Louis, the works of the Willingshausen artists became known in the United States, and numerous works by a wide variety of artists found coveted collectibles in American art collections.

Self-portrait of Karl Hanusch around 1920, charcoal drawing

From 1906 to 1907, Ewald Egg came to Willingshausen for the first time as a pupil of Carl Bantzer, who from 1938 found his way back to Willingshausen every year. The Berlin Art Academy sent Franz Eichhorst , Herbert Arnold and Franz Martin to Willingshausen for study purposes. Carl Bantzer in particular introduced French Impressionism to Willingshausen, which he deepened by studying in Paris from January to March 1890. In 1911 the young painter Alexandra Thilenius came from Bad Wildungen to Willingshausen as a student of Wilhelm Thielmann . In 1912 both married in Willingshausen. Heinrich Otto students the Dusseldorf Academy, the Bonnerin Henriette Schmidt-Bonn and the Eupenerin Lili of Asten worked in Willingshausen since 1912th From 1911 to 1914 the Carl Bantzer students, the Horner landscape painter Karl Henckel and the Austrian open-air painter Johannes Lorenz came to Willingshausen. The impressionist Paul Baum and the Austrian open-air painter Franz Heide-Plaudler were in Willingshausen for the first time in 1914. In 1917 Hermann Kätelhön met his wife Toni Plettner in Willingshausen and moved to Essen. The Dresden painter Franz Hochmann came to Willingshausen to paint in 1921. The art professor at the Breslau Art Academy and later director of the Plauen State Art School, Karl Hanusch , came to Willingshausen with his students in 1922. His son Carl Francis Bantzer , Georg Höhmann , Heinrich Dersch and the painter Hanna Metzger came to Willingshausen as students of the academy professor Carl Bantzer, who was now working in Kassel .

Study locations in the Schwalm area

After Adolf Lins and Hugo Mühlig discovered Röllshausen as a new place to study in 1908 , Franz Eichhorst and Franz Martin Lünstroth joined the new place of study in 1910 . Walter Courtois, Walter Hoeck, Hans Bremer and Ernst Wichert also came to Röllshausen. They lived in the Siebert restaurant, with the exception of Walter Hoeck, who found a studio in the old water mill in Röllshausen. In contrast to Willingshausen, Röllshausen is not located in the narrow, wooded Anrefftal, but in the rampant Schwalmtal, which at that time found the vastness of the landscape as a subject from the painters' perspective. Adolf Lins in particular used Schönberg's chapel of the dead as a motif for his pictures for his picture Rising Moon . From 1914 to 1920, the Berlin painter Franz Eichhorst depicted the genre of peasant life in the pictures Die Hausandacht , Charfreitat , The Spinnstube , Vesper im Korn , Reaper at Work , Fair and Two Women in Front of an Open Wardrobe . His war pictures, created after 1914, are now in the Potsdam Museum. Franz Eichhorst lived permanently in Röllshausen from 1919 to 1923. After Karl Mons had first painted in Willingshausen and Salmshausen , he went to Röllshausen in 1911. Due to the war, he interrupted his stay from 1915 to 1919, but finally settled in Röllshausen in 1935, where he built a house with a studio. His fellow painter Drescher also lived in Röllshausen for several years.

In 1934 the artist couple Karl and Bertha Lenz moved from Erdhausen to Röllshausen. For the first time Karl Lenz painted a not yet painted type of Schwälmerinnen, an old Schwälmerin in light work clothes in the field.

Schrecksbach

Emil Beithan , born in Homburg in 1878 , first came to Willingshausen in 1905 to live in Schrecksbach annually from 1906 to 1914. In Schrecksbach he created the works of the old farmer with grandchild , spinning room , bowling party , Schwalm couple , women in church , and the first Schwalm dance . In 1915 Emil Beithan moved to Röllshausen (today part of the municipality of Schrecksbach in the Schwalm-Eder district ).

Upper limit stream

From 1894 to 1921 the Frankfurt painter Jakob Happ worked in Oberbegrenzebach . The student of Gustav Schönleber in Karlsruhe painted pictures of children, young girls and old men, created Buchschmuck and illustrated the books of Seigertshausener writer Johann Heinrich Schwalm . At the same time, the Mainz painter Carl Goebel painted a series of figure pictures in Ober Grenzebach.

Christerode

In Christerode im Knüll, the Marburg painter Karl Doerbecker painted landscapes of the Knüll . The Berlin painter Willi ter Hell also discovered the crumpled motif for himself.

National Socialism and Expressionism

Carl Bantzer was disturbed by the turmoil of time in 1933 while trying to paint some girls in the picture and to make a cropped picture and was unable to bring either of the two pictures to execution. In 1934, his painting Hessian Last Supper was removed from the Berlin National Gallery and, after lengthy negotiations, handed over to the Marburg University Museum. Nevertheless, Carl Bantzer painted a second version of the harvest worker Rupp , which was intended as a personal gift to Adolf Hitler . However, there was no handover. There was no exchange between the Willingshausen painters and the Ziegenhain painters Stanislaw Kubicki and Albert Wigand at any time during National Socialism. However belonged Bauhaus student Friedrich Wilhelm Bogler , which built in 1929 on Knüllköpfchen his own house, the circle of Carl Bantzers. Willingshausen initially closed itself to the modern age. The rich Jewish culture in Willingshausen was no longer depicted. Franz Eichhorst, who worked in Röllshausen from 1910 to 1914, was appointed professor at the state university for fine and applied arts in Berlin. In 1935 Karl Mons painted a Schwalm peasant (privately owned). In 1936 the painter Heinrich Knauf from Zella beautified a country house near Berlin. The Gießen landscape and figure painter Hellmuth Müller-Leutert came to Willingshausen every year since 1936, and from 1938 the Bavarian painter Hans Hagenauer from Gießen , who created murals for the Wetzlar barracks. In 1937 Karl Lenz painted several street scenes in Willingshausen. In 1939, the Bad Hersfeld painter Georg Vollmeder from Bad Wildungen, Paul Scholz from Kassel, born in Bochum-Dahlhausen, and the Halle painter Paul Radojewski became active in the Willingshausen painters' colony . In 1944 Marianne Heinemann-Thielmann , who married the painter Günther Heinemann , moved to Willingshausen. Both maintained a painting school in Willingshausen.

Modern times and circle of friends

After the Second World War , on the one hand there were signs of disintegration, but at the same time there was an expansion of the term Willigshausen painters' colony. In 1947 Vincent Burek came to Ziegenhain in the Hessian town of Schwalm, where in 1951 he founded the artist group “neue schwalm”, an offshoot of the Willingshausen painters' colony. He introduced late Expressionism in Willingshausen, which had not played any role in Willingshausen until now. In 1945 the Bohemian painter Max Barta came to the Wartberg. He was several times for study purposes in Willingshausen in the Schwalm, but stayed on the Wartberg. The painting school of Günther Heinemann and Marianne Heinemann-Thielmann attracted numerous realistic painters, although Günther Heinemann was the first abstract painter with his works of ferns in red-brown and stone- gray in Willingshausen. Heinrich Knauf worked in Willingshausen until his death.

In 1977 the painter's parlor Gerhardt-von-Reutern-Haus was opened as a museum. An art scholarship is awarded annually in memory of the Willingshausen painters. In 2005 a modern extension was built for the Gerhardt-von-Reutern-Haus.

From July 22nd to 27th, 2019, a painters symposium took place in Willingshausen with artists from eight European countries invited by the artist Ben Kamili. They were Igli Arapi, Italy, Irma Braat, Netherlands, Janko Göttlicher, Denmark, Ann Larsson-Dahlin, Sweden, Antonin Passemard, France, Ilmari Rautio, Finland, Luk van Driessche, Belgium and Ben Kamili, Germany, also artistic director. On the part of Willingshausen Touristik Betriebsgesellschaft, Ulli Becker-Dippel was responsible as the project manager. Artists and organizers of this symposium week and want to meet again in Willingshausen in 2020. The results of this week can be seen in an exhibition until September 1, 2019.

Well-known Willingshausen painters

Willingshausen painter's colony, photo from 1913; From left to right: Heinrich Giebel , Marlies Dörr, Hermann Kätelhön , Hermann Metz , Wilhelm Thielmann , Adolf Lins , Heinrich Otto , Carl Bantzer
Kurt Burmester, drawing by Hermann Kätelhön (1915)
Hermann Kätelhön, Little Summer's Day (etching)

exhibition

  • 2013: Grimm's fairy tales in pictures , Kunsthalle Willingshausen
  • 2019: Willing houses Painters Symposium Kunsthalle Willingshausen

literature

  • Sandra Grothmann: Life and Work of the Painter Emil Beithan - 1878–1955 . Dissertation Frankfurt 2000 ( digitized version ).
  • Carl Bantzer: Hessen in German painting . NG Elwert Verlagsbuchhandlung, Marburg an der Lahn 1979, pp. 7–142.
  • Konrad Kaiser: painter of the Schwalm . Karl Strube Druckerei Felsberg-Gensungen, 2nd edition, Kassel 1980, pp. 4–10.
  • Kurt Schwitters: We play until death picks us up - letters from five decades . Ullstein, Frankfurt, Berlin, Vienna 1974, p. 19.
  • Konrad Kaiser: The Willingshausen artists' colony . Kassel 1980.
  • Ingo F. Walther (ed.) / Manfred Wundram: Painting of the Occident - Early Renaissance. Volume Wissen Verlag GmbH, Herrsching, 1986, p. 78.
  • Jürgen A. Wollmann: The Willingshausen painters 'colony and the Kleinsassen painters' colony . Schwalmstadt 1992.
  • Bernd Küster : Willingshausen artists' colony . Verlag Atelier im Bauernhaus, Fischerhude 2006, ISBN 3-88132-253-1 .
  • Roland Demme: The Willingshausen painters as a group: Interpretation of expectations of concise role-bearers in relation to interactions in group processes (online edition) , Kassel Univ. Press, 2008, ISBN 978-3-89958-436-3

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Clemens Weiler: Ludwig Knaus and Willingshausen. Hessische Heimat, 1st year, 1951, issue 3, p. 42 ff
  2. ↑ Bernd Fäthke: The subject of landscape and Ludwig Knaus. , in exh. Cat .: Ludwig Knaus 1829–1910, Museum Wiesbaden 1979, p. 49 ff

Coordinates: 50 ° 51 ′ 0.9 ″  N , 9 ° 11 ′ 46.3 ″  E