Anton Raphael Mengs (22 March 1728 – 29 June 1779) was a
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
painter, active in
Dresden
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...
,
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
, and
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
, who while painting in the
Rococo
Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...
period of the mid-18th century became one of the precursors to
Neoclassical painting, which replaced Rococo as the dominant painting style in Europe.
Early life
![Mengs, Selbstbildnis im roten Mantel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Mengs%2C_Selbstbildnis_im_roten_Mantel.jpg)
Mengs was born in 1728 at
Ústí nad Labem
Ústí nad Labem (, , ) is a city in the Czech Republic. It has about 92,000 inhabitants. It is the capital of its eponymous region and district. It is a major industrial centre and, besides being an active river port, is an important railway ju ...
(German: Aussig) in the
Kingdom of Bohemia
The Kingdom of Bohemia ( cs, České království),; la, link=no, Regnum Bohemiae sometimes in English literature referred to as the Czech Kingdom, was a medieval and early modern monarchy in Central Europe, the predecessor of the modern Czec ...
, the son of
Ismael Mengs
Ismael Israel Mengs (1690 – 26 December 1765) was a Danish portrait painter.
Born in Copenhagen into a family of Jewish descent, he learned the art of miniature- and enamel-painting in Lübeck, and then traveled through Germany, Italy, and A ...
, a
Danish
Danish may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark
People
* A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark
* Culture of Denmark
* Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish ance ...
painter who eventually established himself at Dresden, where the court of
Saxonian-Polish electors and kings was. His older sister,
Therese Maron, was also a painter, as was his younger sister,
Julia.
His and Therese's births in Bohemia were mere coincidence. Their mother was not their father's wife; Ismael carried on a years-long affair with the family's housekeeper, Charlotte Bormann. In an effort to conceal the births of two illegitimate children, Ismael took Charlotte, under the pretext of "vacations", to the nearest bigger town abroad, Ústí nad Labem (90
km upstream of the
Elbe River). At least in Anton's case, Ismael Mengs took his baby and Charlotte back to Dresden a few weeks after the birth. There they lived for the next 13 years.
In 1741, Ismael moved his family from Dresden to Rome.
Adulthood and death
In 1749, Anton Raphael Mengs was appointed the first painter to
Frederick Augustus, elector of Saxony, but this did not prevent him from continuing to spend much of his time in Rome. There he married Margarita Guazzi, who had sat for him as a model in 1748. He converted to
Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, and in 1754 he became director of the
Vatican painting school. His
fresco
Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaste ...
painting ''Parnassus'' at
Villa Albani gained him a reputation as a master painter.
In 1749, Mengs accepted a commission from the
Duke of Northumberland to make a copy, in oil on canvas, of
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of works by Raphael, His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of ...
's fresco ''
The School of Athens'' for his London home. Executed in 1752–5, Mengs's painting is full-sized, but he adapted the composition to a rectangular format and added other figures. It is now in the collection of the
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
.
Mengs died in Rome in June 1779 and was buried there in the
Church of Santi Michele e Magno
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* Chris ...
.
Career
![Anton Raphael Mengs - Self Portrait - Google Art Project](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Anton_Raphael_Mengs_-_Self_Portrait_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
On two occasions he accepted invitations from
Charles III of Spain
it, Carlo Sebastiano di Borbone e Farnese
, house = Bourbon-Anjou
, father = Philip V of Spain
, mother = Elisabeth Farnese
, birth_date = 20 January 1716
, birth_place = Royal Alcazar of Madrid, Spain
, death_d ...
to go to
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
. There he produced some of his best work, most notably the ceiling of the banqueting hall of the
Royal Palace of Madrid, the subject of which was the ''Triumph of
Trajan
Trajan ( ; la, Caesar Nerva Traianus; 18 September 539/11 August 117) was Roman emperor from 98 to 117. Officially declared ''optimus princeps'' ("best ruler") by the senate, Trajan is remembered as a successful soldier-emperor who presi ...
'' and the ''Temple of Glory.'' After the completion of this work in 1777, Mengs returned to Rome, where he died two years later, in poor circumstances, leaving twenty children, seven of whom were pensioned by the king of Spain.
His portraits and self-portraits recall an attention to detail and insight often lost in his grander paintings.
His closeness to
Johann Joachim Winckelmann has enhanced his historical importance. Mengs came to share Winckelmann's enthusiasm for classical antiquity, and worked to establish the dominance of Neoclassical painting over the then popular Rococo style. At the same time, however, the influence of the Roman Baroque remained strong in his work, particularly in his religious paintings. He would have fancied himself the first neoclassicist, while, in fact, he may be the last flicker of Baroque art.
Rudolf Wittkower wrote: "In the last analysis, he is as much an end as a beginning".
Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treat ...
regretted that "so much learning should have been allied to a total want of initiative and poverty of invention, and embodied with a strained and artificial mannerism."
![Mengs grave Rome](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Mengs_grave_Rome.jpg)
Mengs had a well-known rivalry with the contemporary Italian painter
Pompeo Batoni
Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (25 January 1708 – 4 February 1787) was an Italian painter who displayed a solid technical knowledge in his portrait work and in his numerous allegorical and mythological pictures. The high number of foreign visitors tra ...
. He was also a friend of
Giacomo Casanova. Casanova provides accounts of his personality and contemporary reputation through anecdotes in his ''
Histoire de ma vie
''Histoire de ma vie'' (''History of My Life'') is both the memoir and autobiography of Giacomo Casanova, a famous 18th-century Italian adventurer. A previous, bowdlerized version was originally known in English as ''The Memoirs of Jacques Ca ...
''. Among his pupils in Italy were
Anton von Maron
Anton may refer to: People
*Anton (given name), including a list of people with the given name
*Anton (surname)
Places
*Anton Municipality, Bulgaria
**Anton, Sofia Province, a village
*Antón District, Panama
**Antón, a town and capital of th ...
(Antonio Maron; (Vienna, 1731- Naples, 1761). His pupils in Spain included
Agustín Esteve
Agustín Esteve y Marqués (May 12, 1753 – 1830) was a Spanish painter, mainly active in the Royal household in Madrid.
Biography
Agustín Esteve was a portraitist to the Spanish Crown, who was influenced by Francisco Goya, including nu ...
.
Besides numerous paintings in Madrid, the ''Ascension'' and ''St Joseph'' at Dresden, ''Perseus and Andromeda'' at
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, and the ceiling of the Villa Albani are among his chief works.
A ''Noli me tangere'' was commissioned as an altar-piece by
All Souls College, Oxford
All Souls College (official name: College of the Souls of All the Faithful Departed) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Unique to All Souls, all of its members automatically become fellows (i.e., full members of t ...
, and is now held in the
National Gallery
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director o ...
, London.
Another altar-piece was installed in
Magdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the s ...
.
Theoretical writings
Mengs wrote about art in Spanish,
Italian, and German. He reveals an eclectic theory of art that sees perfection as attainable through a well-balanced fusion of diverse excellences: Greek design combined with the expression of
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of works by Raphael, His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of ...
, the
chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro ( , ; ), in art, is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achi ...
of
Correggio, and the colour of
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italians, Italian (Republic of Venice, Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school (art), ...
.
Selected works
* ''Ascension'' (Dresden, Court Church), 1751/1766
* ''St Joseph'' (Dresden, Court Church), 1751/1766
* ''The Glory of Saint Eusebius'' (ceiling fresco, Sant'Eusebio, Rome), 1757 (
modello, oil on canvas,
National Gallery of Canada Ottawa)
* ''
Portrait of Ferdinand I
''Portrait of Ferdinand IV'' is an 1759 painting by Anton Raphael Mengs, now in the National Museum of Capodimonte, in Naples.
Description
It depicts Ferdinand IV of the Kingdom of Naples, later (after 1816) known as Ferdinand I of the Two Sici ...
'' (
National Museum of Capodimonte, Naples, Italy), 1759
* ''Charles III'' (
Museo del Prado
The Prado Museum ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It is widely considered to house one of the world's finest collections of European art, dating from the ...
, Madrid), 1761
* ''Infante Don Louis de Borbon'' (
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio)
Gallery
File:Anton Raphael Mengs, Prince of Asturias, Future Charles IV of Spain (са 1765) - 02.jpg, ''Prince of Asturias, Future Charles IV of Spain
, house = Bourbon-Anjou
, father = Charles III of Spain
, mother =Maria Amalia of Saxony
, birth_date =11 November 1748
, birth_place =Palace of Portici, Portici, Naples
, death_date =
, death_place = ...
'' (са. 1765)
File:Anton Raphael Mengs 012.jpg, ''Portrait of Maria Luisa of Spain
Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain (Spanish: ''María Luisa'', German: ''Maria Ludovika''; 24 November 1745 – 15 May 1792) was Holy Roman Empress, German Queen, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and Grand Duchess of Tuscany as the spouse of Leopold II, H ...
''
File:Mengs, Helios als Personifikation des Mittages.jpg, ''Helios
In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Helios (; grc, , , Sun; Homeric Greek: ) is the deity, god and personification of the Sun (Solar deity). His name is also Latinized as Helius, and he is often given the epithets Hyper ...
as Personification of Midday'' (ca. 1765)
File:Anton Raphael Mengs - St. John the Baptist Preaching in the Wilderness - Google Art Project.jpg, ''St. John the Baptist
John the Baptist or , , or , ;Wetterau, Bruce. ''World history''. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1994. syc, ܝܘܿܚܲܢܵܢ ܡܲܥܡܕ݂ܵܢܵܐ, Yoḥanān Maʿmḏānā; he, יוחנן המטביל, Yohanān HaMatbil; la, Ioannes Bapti ...
Preaching in the Wilderness''
File:Mengs, Diana als Personifikation der Nacht.jpg, '' Diana as Personification of the Night'' (ca. 1765)
File:Anton Rafael Mengs - Retrato de la marquesa de Llano - Google Art Project.jpg, ''La marquesa de Llano'' (ca. 1775)
File:Anton Raphael Mengs 017.jpg, ''Saint Peter
Saint Peter; he, שמעון בר יונה, Šimʿōn bar Yōnāh; ar, سِمعَان بُطرُس, translit=Simʿa̅n Buṭrus; grc-gre, Πέτρος, Petros; cop, Ⲡⲉⲧⲣⲟⲥ, Petros; lat, Petrus; ar, شمعون الصفـا, Sham'un ...
''
File:Anton Raphael Mengs, The Triumph of History over Time (Allegory of the Museum Clementinum), ceiling fresco in the Camera dei Papiri, Vatican Library, 1772 - M0tty.jpg, ''The Triumph of History over Time'', ceiling Vatican Library
The Vatican Apostolic Library ( la, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, it, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City. Formally es ...
.
File:William Burton Conyngham.jpg, ''Portrait of William Burton Conyngham'' (1733–1796)
File:Anton Raphael Mengs - The Dream of St. Joseph - Google Art Project.jpg, ''The Dream of St. Joseph'' (ca. 1774)
File:Johann Joachim Winckelmann (Raphael Mengs after 1755).jpg, '' Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768)'' (1717–1768) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
(ca. 1777)
See also
*
Karl Woermann
Karl Woermann (4 July 1844 – 4 February 1933) was a German art historian and museum director.
Biography
He was born in Hamburg, studied at various universities (art history at Heidelberg and Munich), and traveled widely. In 1871 Woermann part ...
, ''Ismael und Raphael Mengs'' (Leipzig, 1893)
Notes
Sources
*
*
Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, online editionPaintings by Anton Raphael Mengs at WikiGallery.org
External links
''Europe in the age of enlightenment and revolution'' a catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Mengs (see index)
'Self-portrait' (1774)at th
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool(1761) at the Museo del Prado
*
Scholarly articlesin English about Anton Raphael Mengs both in web an
PDF@ th
Spanish Old Masters Gallery
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mengs, Anton Raphael
1728 births
1779 deaths
German people of Danish descent
German male painters
18th-century German painters
German neoclassical painters
Sibling artists
Artists from Ústí nad Labem
German Roman Catholics
Neoclassical painters
Converts to Roman Catholicism
Catholic painters