Theodor Martens - Wassermühle in Mecklenburg

Theodor Martens (August 27, 1822, – October 1, 1884) was a 19th-century German

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...

Life and work

Martens was born in Wismar, Germany. he had nine children. He resided in Düsseldorf, Paris, Hamburg, Schwerin and Portici, in addition to Wismar. Martens worked as a

merchant A merchant is a person who trades in commodities produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Historically, a merchant is anyone who is involved in business or trade. Merchants have operated for as long as indust ...

until age 40 when he took up art as his full-time vocation. Martens studied with

August Weber Johann Baptist Wilhelm August Weber (10 January 1817, in Frankfurt am Main – 11 September 1873, in Düsseldorf) was a German painter; associated with the Düsseldorfer Malerschule. Life and work He began studying landscape painting in his ...

in Düsseldorf and

Émile Lambinet Émile Lambinet (1813, Versailles – 1877, Bougival) was a French painter of rural scenes. A student of Horace Vernet then Corot, he spent most of his life in Yvelines, at first in his birthplace of Versailles, then at Bougival from 1860. Wor ...

in Paris. His work was especially influenced by the Barbizon school masters such as Corot, Daubigny and Diaz. In 1874 he received a silver medal during a show at the London Crystal Palace. He died from

cholera Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...

in Portici, Italy, aged 62. His paintings are in a realistic style that anticipates the impressionists to follow. Many

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

s and

architectural Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings o ...

subjects are included in his work. His works were considered very modern by contemporaries. Many examples of his work may be found today at the Schwerin State Art Museum in Schwerin, Germany and in the Schwerin Castle located in that northern German city. A painting by Martens was sold July 6, 2004, at auction at Bonhams in London for $790 (US) it was a 27.5 by 35 centimeter oil titled "A river at dusk", the auction report did not disclose a date for the painting.

Sources

* Friedrich Schlie: ''Beschreibendes Verzeichniss der Werke neuerer Meister in der Grossherzoglichen Gemälde-Gallerie zu Schwerin.'' Druck der Bärensprungschen Hofbuchdruckerei, Schwerin 1884
archive.org
* * ''Martens, Theodor.'' In: Hermann Alexander Müller: ''Biographisches Künstler-Lexikon.'' Verlag des Bibliographischen Instituts, Leipzig 1882, pg.355

.

External links

1822 births 1884 deaths Deaths from cholera 19th-century German painters 19th-century German male artists German male painters Realist painters Infectious disease deaths in Campania {{Germany-painter-stub