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(b Lübeck, Dec 24, 1707; d Alt-Döbern [Niederlausitz], nr Dresden, Jan 23, 1791).

German art scholar and collector. At school in Lübeck he became acquainted with the ideas of Leibniz and Christian Wolff; from 1724 he studied law and literature in Leipzig. There he developed an interest in the Enlightenment thinking of Johann Christoph Gottsched and in art, particularly the many private collections. In 1730 he became a private tutor in the Dresden house of the elector’s court poet Johann Ulrich König. Two years later he published a treatise on morality, Die wahren Absichten des Menschen. Heinecken then became steward at the house of the minister, Graf Sulkowsky. After Sulkowsky’s fall Graf Heinrich von Brühl, the most powerful man at the Saxon court, took on Heinecken as librarian and private secretary. In 1737 he translated Longinus’ On the Sublime from the Greek. In this work Heinecken pointed to the importance of ancient art theory long before Winckelmann, attracting much attention and the enmity of Gottsched. Under Brühl’s protection Heinecken, who was without wealth, was knighted, awarded the Alt-Döbern estate and managed Brühl’s estates, factories and finances. He was promoted to Oberamtsrat at the Saxon court; his unusual expertise in art and his clear judgement caused the king, ...

[Maler Müller]

(b Kreuznach, Jan 13, 1749; d Rome, April 23, 1825).

German painter, engraver, draughtsman, poet and Playwright. From about 1765 he was taught by Daniel Hien (1724–73), court painter to Christian IV, Duke of Zweibrücken, with 17th-century Dutch painting as his model. Müller showed a talent for realistic depiction of animals, especially horses, and landscape, including farm scenes. The Duke gave him an allowance so that, from 1769, he was able to attend the Mannheim Akademie. Müller’s friendship there with Ferdinand Kobell and Franz Kobell (1749–1822) led to a considerable mutual influence in the work of all three. Müller also established himself as a poet at this time, becoming one of the representatives of the late 18th-century German literary movement known as Sturm und Drang. In the course of the 1770s Müller wrote a celebrated series of idylls, the lyric drama Niobe and the first parts of his Fausts Leben dramatisiert, all issued in editions with his own engraved illustrations. Life drawings and etchings from this period are in Mannheim (Städt. Reiss-Mus.), Frankfurt am Main (Goethemus.) and Monaco-Ville (Archvs Pal. Princier). At this time, however, Müller’s work as a poet and dramatist was more widely known and admired than his work as an artist. His study of the famous collection of casts of antique sculptures in the Antikensaal at Mannheim, and of paintings in the picture gallery belonging to the Elector ...

(b Wangen, Allgäu, Nov 24, 1670; d Ottobeuren, Oct 20, 1740).

German churchman, writer and patron. He entered the Order of St Benedict in 1688 and studied philosophy and theology at Ottobeuren and at the Benedictine university at Salzburg. He was ordained a priest in 1694 and began pastoral work in Tisis, Vorarlberg. His first theological writings date from 1702. Having served as agriculturalist (1703–10) to the abbey of Ottobeuren, he was elected the 52nd abbot of Ottobeuren on 8 May 1710. In 1711 he became regional governor, in 1712 imperial councillor and hereditary chaplain and in 1718 praeses (president) of the Benedictine congregation at Salzburg. He is regarded as the second founder of Ottobeuren through his commissioning (1711) of an extensive building programme (see Ottobeuren), in which the architecture mirrors the mind and faith of its builder, being a synthesis of Benedictine order and freedom, severity and serenity, individual and community, nature and art, worldliness and spirituality. The building marks the flowering of German late Baroque monastery architecture in the prestigious, imperial style. The exact progress of the building of the monastery and its new church can be reconstructed from the 14 surviving volumes of the Abbot’s diaries (Ottobeuren, Benedictine abbey; Munich, Bayer. Haupstaatsarchv), which are divided into political, ecclesiastical and economic sections. Portraits of ...