Georg Emanuel Opiz Donauschiffer auf ihrem Kahn

Georg Emanuel Opiz (4 April 1775,

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

- 12 July 1841,

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

) was a

Bohemian German German Bohemians (german: Deutschböhmen und Deutschmährer, i.e. German Bohemians and German Moravians), later known as Sudeten Germans, were ethnic Germans living in the Czech lands of the Bohemian Crown, which later became an integral part ...

painter and graphic artist. He also wrote some now-forgotten historical novels, under the pseudonym "Bohemus".

Biography

His father, Johann Ferdinand Opiz (1741–1812), was a tax official who also worked as a writer and magazine editor, and carried on a correspondence with Giacomo Casanova. His mother, Louise Philippine, was a great niece of the explorer,

Engelbert Kaempfer Engelbert Kaempfer (16 September 16512 November 1716) was a German naturalist, physician, explorer and writer known for his tour of Russia, Persia, India, Southeast Asia, and Japan between 1683 and 1693. He wrote two books about his travels. ''A ...

. His brother was the botanist,

Philipp Maximilian Opiz Philipp (Filip) Maximilian Opiz (5 June 1787 in Čáslav – 20 May 1858 in Prague) was a Czech-German forester and botanist. Beginning in 1805 he served as a cameral-beamter in his hometown of Čáslav, later working in Pardubice (from 1808) ...

After completing his secondary education in Prague, he took a law degree, while studying drawing and painting in his spare time. In 1793, he continued those studies at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts, where his primary instructor was

Giovanni Battista Casanova Giovanni Battista Casanova (; 2 November 1730 – 8 December 1795) was an Italian painter and printmaker of the Neoclassic period. He was a brother of Giacomo Casanova and Francesco Giuseppe Casanova and was born at Venice. He studied painti ...

, Giacomo's brother. In 1798, he made his living by painting the wealthy guests at the spa in Karlsbad. Around 1800, he was in Hamburg and

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...

then, from 1801 to 1803, in Vienna. It was there he created his ''Scenes from the Street and Folk Life of Franciscan Vienna'' (a reference to Emperor

Francis I Francis I or Francis the First may refer to: * Francesco I Gonzaga (1366–1407) * Francis I, Duke of Brittany (1414–1450), reigned 1442–1450 * Francis I of France (1494–1547), King of France, reigned 1515–1547 * Francis I, Duke of Saxe-Lau ...

). Some of these were made into etchings by , among others, and established his reputation as a genre artist. His style was influenced by William Hogarth and

Daniel Chodowiecki Daniel Niklaus Chodowiecki (16 October 1726 – 7 February 1801) was a German painter and printmaker of Huguenot and Polish ancestry, who is most famous as an etcher. He spent most of his life in Berlin, and became the director of the Berlin Acad ...

. In 1805, he and his wife settled in

, where he produced

portrait miniatures A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting, usually executed in gouache, watercolor, or enamel. Portrait miniatures developed out of the techniques of the miniatures in illuminated manuscripts, and were popular among 16th-century el ...

. In 1814, following the

War of the Sixth Coalition In the War of the Sixth Coalition (March 1813 – May 1814), sometimes known in Germany as the Wars of Liberation, a coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Sweden, and a number of German States defeated F ...

, he went to Paris to create and sell etchings related to the Coalition's victory. He apparently remained there until 1817, when he returned to Leipzig and created a series of etchings on life in Paris, published by F. A. Brockhaus. From 1818 to 1830, he worked as an engraver for the magazine ''Urania'', also published by Brockhaus. Numerous erotic etchings have been attributed to him. His major publication, ''Character Scenes from Life in Paris'', with twenty-four colored etchings, appeared in 1819. During the 1820s, he produced watercolors which suggest that he visited Russia and the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

. In the latter part of the 1820s, he became a Professor at the

Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig The Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst (HGB) or Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig is one of the oldest art schools in Germany, dating back to 1764. The school has four colleges specializing in fine arts, graphic design, photography and new media a ...

. During this period, his well-known ''

Leipziger Messe The Leipzig Trade Fair (german: Leipziger Messe) is a major trade fair, which traces its roots back for nearly a millennium. After the Second World War, Leipzig fell within the territory of East Germany, whereupon the Leipzig Trade Fair became o ...

Scenes'' were published in Dresden. Der Eislaufplatz beim Stubentor 1805

References

External links

More works by Opiz
@ ArtNet
''Frauengrösse oder der Blödsinnige''
by "Bohemus", 1835 @ Google books {{DEFAULTSORT:Opiz, Georg Emanuel 1775 births 1841 deaths 18th-century German painters 18th-century German male artists German etchers German engravers German illustrators German watercolourists German Bohemian people Austrian emigrants to Germany Artists from Prague Academic staff of the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig 19th-century German painters 19th-century German male artists Painters from the Holy Roman Empire

Biography

References

Further reading

External links