Johann Baptist Wilhelm August Weber (10 January 1817, in
Frankfurt am Main
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...
– 11 September 1873, in
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...
) was a German painter; associated with the
Düsseldorfer Malerschule.
Life and work
He began studying landscape painting in his hometown, with Carl Heinrich Rosenkranz (1801-1851), then moved to
Darmstadt
Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it th ...
in 1835, where he continued his studies with the
court painter
A court painter was an artist who painted for the members of a royal or princely family, sometimes on a fixed salary and on an exclusive basis where the artist was not supposed to undertake other work. Painters were the most common, but the cour ...
,
Johann Heinrich Schilbach
Johann Heinrich Schilbach (28 September 1798, Barchfeld - 9 May 1851, Darmstadt) was a German landscape painter.
Life and work
He studied in Darmstadt with the landscape painter, Johann Georg Primavesi. In 1818, he took an extended study tri ...
. This was followed by a study trip to Switzerland.
Upon returning to Frankfurt, he studied at the
Städelschule
The Städelschule (), Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, is a tertiary school of art in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It accepts about 20 students each year from 500 applicants, and has a total of approximately 150 students of visual a ...
until 1838. In that year, he went to Düsseldorf, where he spent a year at the
KunstAkademie, and soon became a teacher himself. His notable students included
Theodor Martens, and
John Robinson Tait. Due to his proven ability, he was appointed a Professor by King
Friedrich Wilhelm III
Frederick William III (german: Friedrich Wilhelm III.; 3 August 1770 – 7 June 1840) was King of Prussia from 16 November 1797 until his death in 1840. He was concurrently Elector of Brandenburg in the Holy Roman Empire until 6 August 1806, wh ...
.
In 1844, he was one of the co-founders of the , and later became a member of the progressive artists' association "
Malkasten
Malkasten (English: "Paintbox") is a progressive German artists' association, founded in Düsseldorf in 1848, during the March Revolution. Since 1867, their headquarters have been in the Pempelfort district.
History
During the unrest in 1848, ...
" (Paintbox). In 1863, he was named an honorary member of the Düsseldorfer Künstler-Liedertafel (
Round Table
The Round Table ( cy, y Ford Gron; kw, an Moos Krenn; br, an Daol Grenn; la, Mensa Rotunda) is King Arthur's famed table in the Arthurian legend, around which he and his knights congregate. As its name suggests, it has no head, implying that e ...
) and, the following year, he became an Honorary Master of the
Freies Deutsches Hochstift
The Freies Deutsches Hochstift (Free German Foundation) is a literary association based in Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany. It is the owner of the Goethe House, the place where the playwright and poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born and spent his ...
in Frankfurt. In 1871, he developed an eye condition that left him unable to paint for over a year. In 1873, shortly after he had resumed painting, he died of pneumonia.
Although his works are realistic in appearance, most of them are composed of imaginative or
idealistic
In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected to ide ...
elements. The art historian, , described his work as expressing a "Post-Romantic" sensibility, inspired by
Salomon van Ruysdael
Salomon van Ruysdael (c. 1602, Naarden – buried 3 November 1670, Haarlem) was a Dutch Golden Age landscape painter. He was the uncle of Jacob van Ruisdael. . In addition to landscape paintings, he also created
watercolor
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...
s and
lithographs
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
.
A large number of his works were damaged or destroyed during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. Many of the paintings subsequently sold as his were actually the work of a Swiss artist, also named August Weber, who lived from 1898 to 1957.
Sources
*
* "Weber, August". In: Friedrich von Boetticher: ''Malerwerke des 19. Jahrhunderts. Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte'', Vol.2/2, Saal–Zwengauer, Boetticher’s Verlag, Dresden 1901, pg.979
Online
* "Weber, August", In: Richard Klapheck: ''Die Kunstsammlungen der Staatlichen Kunstakademie zu Düsseldorf.'' Strucken, Düsseldorf 1928
* "Weber, August", In: ''Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart'', Vol. 35: Waage–Wilhelmson, pp. 215–216, E. A. Seemann, Leipzig, 1942
External links
More works by Weber@ ArtNet
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weber, August
19th-century German painters
German male painters
1817 births
1873 deaths
Deaths from pneumonia in Germany
19th-century German male artists