Romanticism

(b Messkirch, Baden-Württemberg, June 27, 1774; d Stuttgart, Aug 27, 1814).

German painter. From 1789 he attended the Hohe Karlsschule of Charles Eugene, Duke of Württemberg, in Stuttgart; there he studied under Philipp Friedrich von Hetsch, who stimulated his interest in art. In 1792, finding its military discipline too oppressive, he left the Karlsschule and the following year went to Donaueschingen, the royal seat of his early patrons, the Princes of Fürstenberg, to paint portraits and military scenes. From 1798 he was based in Stuttgart, though he was frequently elsewhere. His refined and sensitive portraits, mainly of royalty (e.g. Duke Frederick I of Württemberg with his Baton in Front of Schloss Monrepos, 1803; Stuttgart, Standort Schlossmus.), have strong forms and vivid colours reminiscent of the paintings of David, Gérard and Ingres. In 1804 Duke Frederick II of Württemberg (later King Frederick I of Württemberg) appointed him court painter and also director of the Württemberg electoral private gallery in Ludwigsburg (the contents of which were later dispersed to several museums and other locations), but such artists as Gottlieb Schick resented Seele’s successes and the favours bestowed on him by the Duke. In ...

(Caroline Sophie)

(b Jena, May 15, 1786; d Weimar, Oct 7, 1866).

German painter. She began her training in Gotha and Jena and in 1810–11 she studied in Dresden at the Akademie under Christian Leberecht Vogel and Gerhard von Kügelgen. In 1817 she studied at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich under Robert von Langer. Early in her career she was in demand for her copies of Italian Renaissance masters and also as a portrait painter, mostly in pastel. Among her early portraits is one of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1811; Weimar, Goethe-Wohnhaus), whose friendship and encouragement were important to her. From 1816 onwards she worked on an altarpiece in oils for the Rochuskapelle near Bingen, Rheinland-Pfalz, St Roch on his Wanderings (1817; in situ). With Goethe’s help, she received stipends for visits to Munich and Italy from Charles Augustus, Duke of Saxe-Weimar (1757–1828). In Rome, between 1818 and 1823 she moved in the circle of the Lukasbrüder (...

(b Rome, June 11, 1844; d Rome, Sept 11, 1908).

Italian painter and mosaicist of German descent. He was the son of the Nazarene painter Alexander Maximilian Seitz (1811–88) and inherited his father’s interest in the religious painting of the Quattrocento. His German heritage was important for the formation of his style, as his father was taught by Peter Cornelius, whom Ludovico Seitz knew well and whose studio he was entrusted with organizing after Cornelius’s death. Seitz also obtained important commissions through his family’s link with prominent German Catholics: his godfather was Ludwig I, King of Bavaria. His earliest commission, scenes from the Life of Christ (c. 1865; Dakovo, Cathedral), executed with his father, recalls Dürer and his school. He received further commissions for churches in Rome, including S Maria in Aracoeli (St Thomas Aquinas and St Bonaventure, c. 1870) and S Maria dell’Anima, where he frescoed a chapel (c. 1872) dedicated to St John of Nepomuk. In the latter, he moved away from the crisp forms and restrained emotion present in the paintings at Dakovo towards a more florid style, richer in colour and more obviously pious in expression. This change in style coincided with official Catholic taste during the papacy of Leo XIII (...

(Hryhorovych) [Grigor’yevich]

(b Moryntsi, Kiev province [now Cherkasy region], March 9, 1814; d St Petersburg, March 10, 1861).

Ukrainian painter, graphic artist and poet. He was born a serf, and he moved to St Petersburg with his owner in 1831. In 1832–8 he worked in the studio of the fresco painter V. Shiryayev. With the help of some Russian writers and artists, he was bought out of serfdom in 1838, and he enrolled at the Academy of Arts. From 1838 to 1845 he studied under Karl Bryullov, whose influence, which continued, can already be seen in Shevchenko’s watercolour Gypsy Woman and the Self-portrait in oils (both 1841; Kiev, Shevchenko Mus.)

Bryullov’s influence is further notable in Shevchenko’s portraits of the 1840s. Shevchenko’s artistic and literary activities went hand in hand, and he published numerous volumes of poetry. In 1842 he painted the picture Katerina (Kiev, Shevchenko Mus.) on the same subject as his poem of that title—a serf girl deceived and abandoned by an officer. The central figure is painted with great delicacy and psychological effect; although conventional in composition and tone it shows a detailed observation of everyday life....

(b Christiania [Kristiania from 1877; now Oslo], Nov 29, 1869; d Oslo, June 19, 1935).

Norwegian painter and printmaker. Sohlberg decided to be a painter when young, but his father wished him to follow a thorough training as a craftsman. Sohlberg therefore enrolled at the Royal School of Drawing in Kristiania in 1885 under the interior designer Wilhelm Krogh (1829–1913) and stayed at the school until 1890. Subsequently, he attended night classes under the graphic artist and painter Johan Nordhagen (1856–1956) both in the autumn of 1906 and also from 1911 to 1917, when he concentrated on printmaking. Sohlberg painted his first pictures while staying in the Valdrés region to the north-west of Kristiania in summer 1889. The following summer he painted with Sven Jørgensen (1861–1940) at Slagen near Åsgårdstrand, and in autumn 1891 he was a pupil of Erik Werenskiold and Eilif Peterssen in Kristiania. For some months during the winter of 1891–2 Sohlberg attended Kristian Zahrtmann’s art school in Copenhagen. He also studied for four months in ...

(Eliel)

(b Kälviä, Vaasa, Aug 10, 1870; d Helsinki, March 14, 1956).

Finnish architect. With Eliel Saarinen, he was one of the leading Finnish architects of the early 20th century. Although his career spanned six decades, his most active period was between 1893 and 1920.

Sonck studied architecture at the Polytechnic Institute of Finland in Helsinki from 1890 to 1894. While still a student in 1894 he won an important competition for the church of St Michael, Turku. The lengthy design and building period (1894–1905) reflected more general stylistic developments then taking place in Finnish architecture. Brick was chosen for the church, and Sonck went to Germany in 1894 to study brick construction there. However, the German-derived, brick Gothic Revival style of the early designs was subsequently infused with Jugendstil influences, and stone, granite and soapstone also came to be used. This process of development culminated in the church of St John (1900–07; now Tampere Cathedral). This is Sonck’s masterpiece and one of the key monuments of Finnish ...

(Valentin)

(b Birkerød, N. Zealand, June 24, 1801; d Copenhagen, Sept 24, 1890).

Danish painter. His father, Jørgen Sonne (1771–1833), a map engraver and book illustrator, originally intended that Sonne should have a military career. However, after a brief period at the military academy Sonne enrolled at the Kunstakademi in Copenhagen. He became a private pupil of Christian David Gebauer (1777–1831), a painter of animals and battle scenes. In the life class he was taught by Johan Ludvig Lund (1777–1867), who had been influenced by the German Nazarenes. He was awarded a grant to continue his studies abroad, and in January 1829 he was admitted to the academy in Munich, where he was influenced by the battle and genre painter Peter von Hess (1792–1871). From November 1831 until late 1840 or early 1841 he was in Rome, featuring in Constantin Hansen’s A Group of Danish Artists in Rome (Copenhagen, Stat. Mus. Kst), painted in 1837...

(b East Liberty, PA, March 2, 1822; d New York, Jan 22, 1900).

American painter. Born the son of a merchant in a suburb of Pittsburgh, he moved to Cincinnati at an early age. Despite his father’s opposition, he began a career as an itinerant landscape painter in the mid-1840s, selling paintings and sketches throughout the Ohio Valley. An exhibition of his work, held in a store, won him a commission in 1846 from the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad to paint a series of views along its route. In 1855 Sonntag travelled to Italy to study in Florence for a year, a journey that resulted in Classic Italian Landscape with Temple of Venus (c. 1860; Washington, DC, Corcoran Gal. A.). He lived permanently in New York after 1860, and by 1862 he was a full academician at the National Academy of Design there.

Sonntag was always a wanderer in the lesser-known, picturesque areas of Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, along the Kanauba, Potomac and Ohio rivers, which often featured in his paintings, for example ...

(b Vienna, July 2, 1810; d Frankfurt am Main, Sept 18, 1886).

Austrian painter. He studied at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna from 1823, where he was taught by Vincenz Georg Kininger. His training under Leopold Kupelwieser had a lasting influence on his work, for it was during this period (1826–8) that he learnt about Italian painting of the Quattrocento. In 1828 he went to Rome, where he joined Philipp Veit, who influenced his style, Friedrich Overbeck and Joseph Führich. He sketched a Visitation, and an Annunciation for the church of Trinità dei Monti in Rome; these were painted as frescoes by his friend Josef Tunner.

In Munich in 1837 Steinle met the German poet Clemens Brentano and worked on paintings (e.g. six coloured cartoons for the Clemens Room in the house of Karl von Guaita in Frankfurt am Main, 1853–4; priv. col.) and illustrations (e.g. woodcuts, Clemens Brentano: Chronika eines fahrenden Schülers, Munich, 1882) to his poems. He moved to Frankfurt am Main in ...

(b Brussels, June 14, 1819; d Brussels, June 14, 1916).

Belgian painter and lithographer. He studied at the Brussels Académie des Beaux-Arts between 1832 and 1847, working under François-Joseph Navez, Paulus Lauters and François-Antoine Bossuet (1798–1889). Primarily a painter of landscapes and architectural subjects, Stroobant travelled widely, visiting the Netherlands, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Hungary and exhibiting his pictures at the salons in Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels and elsewhere. Over 60 years (c. 1839–c. 1890) his style changed little; his paintings are all in a picturesque Romantic manner (e.g. Hôtel de Ville, c. 1870; London, Guildhall A.G.). He was the founder and first director of the Académie des Beaux-Arts at Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, a suburb of Brussels.

(b Liverpool, Aug 25, 1724; d London, July 10, 1806).

English painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. His study of anatomy enabled him to paint horses, dogs, and wild animals with unsurpassed truth to nature, while his innate sense of design enabled him to achieve graceful, rhythmic compositions. His contemporary reputation was chiefly based on portraits of horses and dogs; but he also painted human portraits, conversation pieces, and imaginative subjects with animals. His keen empirical instinct led him to experiment with enamel painting and to the perfection of a fastidiously beautiful mixed-method printmaking technique.

As an artist Stubbs was largely self-taught. Until he was about 16 he worked with his father, a currier in Liverpool. He then (probably in 1741) worked briefly under Hamlet Winstanley (1694–1756), an artist from Warrington, Lancs, copying pictures in the collection of Edward Stanley, 11th Earl of Derby (1689–1776), at Knowsley Hall, near Liverpool; disliking copying, Stubbs left to teach himself to paint at home. He moved to York ...

(b Seville, April 18, 1857; d Seville, Dec 21, 1896).

Spanish sculptor. He was a pupil of the painter José de la Vega Marrugal and showed an early talent for modelling. In 1883 he went to Paris under the patronage of the Russian Prince Giedroge to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and later with a grant from the Spanish government he went to Rome, where his work was awarded prizes. In 1887 he won a second-class medal at the Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes in Madrid with the First Struggle (c. 1887; Seville, Mus. B.A.). He exhibited a number of works at the Exposición Nacional in 1890: Witches’ Sabbath, Blind Man’s Guide of Tormes (Toledo, Hosp. Tavera) and the Kiss of Judas, which won him a second-class medal. Using terracotta he executed numerous bas-reliefs and groups of local customs, historical, mythological and religious subjects, such as Ecstasy (1882; Madrid, Prado). His commemorative monuments include two in Seville dedicated to ...

(b Vouziers, Ardennes, April 21, 1828; d Paris, March 5, 1893).

French philosopher, critic, historian and teacher. After a brilliant school career and several years teaching in the provinces, he established his reputation as a literary critic with Essai sur les fables de La Fontaine (1853). In 1864 he published his Histoire de la littérature anglaise. He became one of the most distinguished French historians of the late 19th century. His outstanding work is undoubtedly Les Origines de la France contemporaine (1876–93), in which he applied his positivist philosophy and scientific method to analyzing the ancien régime and the French Revolution.

Taine was deeply interested in the visual arts. Through the support of the Minister of Education, Victor Duruy, he was appointed teacher of art history and aesthetics at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in October 1864, in succession to Viollet-le-Duc, who had been forced to resign as a result of student hostility. For the next 20 years, Taine imparted his erudition and philosophical insight to many generations of painters, sculptors and architects. He constantly revised his lectures in the light of new documents and his visits to European museums. His teaching programme was organized around five-year cycles (on the subject of art in Italy, in the Netherlands and in Greece), which were repeated four times between ...

(b Warsaw, March 31, 1798; d Warsaw, Sept 3, 1854).

Polish sculptor. He studied from 1817 to 1822 at the Department of Fine Arts of Warsaw University under the sculptor Pawel Maliński (d 1853) and the painter Antoni Brodowski, and then in Rome at the Accademia di S Luca, from 1823 to 1828, under Bertel Thorvaldsen. During this period he produced a number of works in marble: busts of the pianist Maria Szymanowska (1825) and of Prince Józef Poniatowski (1828), the statue the Death of Psyche (1828; all Kraków, N. Mus.) and the relief Christ Curing the Blind (1827; Warsaw, N. Mus.). The purity and classical perfection of these works were not repeated after the artist returned to Poland. In 1829 Tatarkiewicz left Rome, returning to Warsaw via Northern Italy, Paris, Munich and Berlin, where a meeting with the German sculptor Christian Daniel Rauch led to a move towards a more Romantic style. Following his return to Warsaw, Tatarkiewicz received several commissions for sculpture to be incorporated into recent major architectural projects: in ...

(b Rotterdam, March 20, 1809; d Rotterdam, April 2, 1881).

Dutch painter. He was intended to succeed his father in the family cloth-dyeing business. In the evenings he attended classes with the genre painter Cornelis Bakker (1771–1849) at the Rotterdam Hierdoor tot Hoger society (‘The way to higher things’). In 1839 he decided to paint full time and continued his training with Willem Hendrik Schmidt (1809–49). Throughout his life Tavenraat travelled in order to paint, visiting Belgium, Germany (following the Rhine), Bohemia and the Tyrol. From 1842 to 1846 he lived in Antwerp working with Felix de Bovie (1812–80), a pupil of Barend Cornelis Koekkoek. He also continued his training with Eugène de Block (1812–93).

As his style developed Tavenraat became one of the most remarkable Dutch Romantic artists. He painted mainly mountainous landscapes, often inhabited by animals and figures. His favourite subjects were hunting scenes, turf huts on heathland, sunrises and sunsets, imminent thunderstorms, waterfalls and woods, and he was particularly fond of painting deer. His choice of subject and his technique (free, broad brushstrokes in daring colours) differed markedly from those of his contemporaries. Apart from his mainly small, landscape-format oil paintings, he made many caricature drawings of beaters, poachers, hounds, deer and hares. Under the influence of Koekkoek, Tavenraat was one of the few mid-19th-century Dutch artists who made ...

(b Torano, Massa e Carrara, Nov 11, 1789; d Rome, Dec 14, 1869).

Italian sculptor. From 1803 he trained under Lorenzo Bartolini at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Carrara, where he was also influenced by his uncle, Pietro Marchetti (fl 1789–1850), the professor of sculpture, and by the French painter Jean-Baptiste Frédéric Desmarais (1756–1813). In 1813 he won a scholarship to study in Rome and moved there in 1814. He visited art exhibitions and museums, took lessons in painting the nude at the Académie de France and attended the studio of Gaspare Landi. As a fundamental test for all aspiring sculptors, he copied one of The Dioscuri, colossal Roman statues of Castor and Pollux located on Monte Cavallo (now Piazza del Quirinale), though he destroyed his copy. In 1816 he received significant recognition by winning the Premio dell’Anonimo, instituted by Canova, for his much-acclaimed Risen Redeemer (untraced). Towards the end of 1815 he came into contact with Bertel Thorvaldsen and worked with him in his studio in the Piazza Barberini....

(b Dailly, Ayrshire, Sept 1, 1778; d Duddingston, Oct 28, 1840).

Scottish painter. Destined for the Church, he attended Glasgow University in 1791–2, transferring from 1793 to 1797 to Edinburgh. In 1797 he took drawing lessons from Alexander Nasmyth. He was ordained in 1800 and succeeded his father the same year as minister of Dailly. Thanks to Walter Scott, a close friend and important influence on his work, he was transferred to Duddingston in 1805. Influenced by the landscape backgrounds of Salvator Rosa, Poussin, Claude Lorrain, Turner and Henry Raeburn, he developed a broad Romantic style. His preferred subjects were landscapes and deserted Scottish castles; for example Fast Castle from Below, St Abb’s Head in the Distance (Edinburgh, N.G.), Newark Castle (c. 1829; Duke of Buccleuch priv. col.) and Urquhart Castle and Loch Ness (priv. col., see Macmillan, p. 154). The essential characteristics of the Scottish climate were conveyed with vigorous brushstrokes: driving storms, raging seas, cloudless summer skies, the cold effects of swirling mists and mountain-sides. ...

(b Berlin, Aug 14, 1776; d Berlin, May 12, 1851).

German sculptor. He was initially apprenticed to Christian Friedrich Heinrich Siegismund Bettkober (1746–1809), while simultaneously attending drawing-classes at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin under Johann Gottfried Schadow, to whose studio he moved in 1794. His brother Ludwig Tieck (1773–1853), the Romantic poet, introduced him to the literary circle of the Romantics. From 1798 he spent three years in Paris, where he entered Louis David’s studio. In 1801, on his return journey, he met Goethe in Weimar and sculpted his portrait bust (Weimar, Goethe-Nmus. Frauenplan). Through Goethe’s mediation, he received the commission for decorative relief panels (e.g. the Prince as Protector of the Arts and Sciences, 1801–5; all in situ) for the Schloss in Weimar. In 1805 he won a scholarship to Rome, where he met Christian Daniel Rauch and they began a friendship that would be decisive for the future direction of Tieck’s life. In Carrara between ...

(b Conflans, Oct 24, 1804; d Paris, May 11, 1874).

French sculptor and designer of Italian descent. He studied painting with Louis Hersent in Paris before embarking on a career as a sculptor. He made his début at the Salon of 1831 with a bronze relief of the Death of Charles the Bold (untraced); closely based on 15th-century models, it identified him as one of a new generation of Romantic sculptors who rejected the Neo-classical teaching of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in favour of learning from medieval and early Renaissance examples.

Triqueti occasionally put his knowledge of medieval art into practice as a restorer, working on the famous bone and marquetry reredos from the abbey of Poissy (Paris, Louvre) in 1831, and in 1840–48 on the restoration of the Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, under the supervision of the architect Félix-Jacques Duban. Numerous drawings provide further evidence of his interest in medieval and Renaissance monuments (e.g. Romanesque Portal of Basle Cathedral, 1831, Montargis, Mus. B.-A.; ...

A branch of history painting that flourished in the late 18th century and early 19th, primarily in France. Born out of the historical and aesthetic interests of the 18th century, the Troubadour style in France preceded Romanticism, with which it shared its devotion to the past and its most famous exponents: Ingres, Bonington and Delacroix. It adapted the 18th-century fashion for Neo-classical pastiche and prefigured the historicism of 19th-century art in its taste for scenes and characters drawn from the art and history of the Middle Ages. The style was at first confined to the fine arts and appeared in the Paris Salon from c. 1800. Later it merged into Romanticism and influenced the decorative artists of the Restoration (1814–30). It was distinct from the Cathedral style, which was manifested primarily in the decorative arts, and from the Gothic Revival, which followed it.

The term ‘troubadour’ was first applied by the last contemporaries of Romanticism (e.g. ...