![Wendel Dietterlin, Portrait](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Wendel_Dietterlin%2C_Portrait.jpg)
Wendel Dietterlin (c.1550–1599), sometimes Wendel Dietterlin the Elder, to distinguish him from his son, was a German
mannerist
Mannerism, which may also be known as Late Renaissance, is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, ...
painter,
printmaker
Printmaking is the process of creating work of art, artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand proce ...
and
architectural theoretician
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 ...
. Most of his paintings are now lost, and he is best known for his treatise on architectural ornament, ''Architectura'', published in its final edition in Nuremberg in 1598.
Life
Dietterlin was born at
Pfullendorf
Pfullendorf is a small town of about 13,000 inhabitants located north of Lake Constance in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was a Free Imperial City of the Holy Roman Empire for nearly 600 years.
The town is in the district of Sigmaringen south of ...
in
Württemberg
Württemberg ( ; ) is a historical German territory roughly corresponding to the cultural and linguistic region of Swabia. The main town of the region is Stuttgart.
Together with Baden and Hohenzollern, two other historical territories, Würt ...
; his original name was Grapp and he may have been a member of a family of artists in
Swabia
Swabia ; german: Schwaben , colloquially ''Schwabenland'' or ''Ländle''; archaic English also Suabia or Svebia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany.
The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of ...
, spent most of his life in
Strasbourg
Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the Eu ...
(then Strassburg), where he married Catharina Sprewer on 12 November 1570, and where he is known to have painted frescos for the ''Bruderhof'', the Bishop's residence, in 1575, but he is later recorded in
Hagenau
Haguenau (; Alsatian: or ; and historically in English: ''Hagenaw'') is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department of France, of which it is a sub-prefecture.
It is second in size in the Bas-Rhin only to Strasbourg, some to the south. To the n ...
in 1583 and in
Oberkirch in 1589. He also worked on large projects in Stuttgart for some time (see below).
[Martin, p. 703; Heck.] He died in
Strasbourg
Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the Eu ...
.
Paintings
![Wendel Dietterlin, Auferweckung des Lazarus](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Wendel_Dietterlin%2C_Auferweckung_des_Lazarus.jpg)
In Strasbourg, Dietterlin worked on the decoration of the ''Neuer Bau'' (currently the building of the
Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie
A chamber of commerce, or board of trade, is a form of business network. For example, a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to ad ...
) in 1589. Between 1590 and 1592 he was employed in
Stuttgart
Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...
with the execution of a large (57 metres long and 20 metres wide) ceiling painting in the upper hall of the ''
Neues Lusthaus'', a building constructed by
Duke Ludwig of Württemberg for entertainment purposes. In addition to the ceiling, Dietterlin painted the walls of the hall. The Renaissance ''Lusthaus'' having later been rebuilt several times and almost entirely replaced in 1845 by the new ''Hoftheater'' (which was destroyed in a fire in 1902, when some of the remains of the original building came to light), nothing is now preserved of the paintings from the hall, but they are depicted in a 1619 etching by the Strasbourg-based painter and engraver
Friedrich Brentel showing the interior of the large room.
Other of his paintings are known from engravings by Matthäus Greuter and by his own grandson Bartholomäus Dietterlin. The style, with "exaggerated foreshortenings", appears influenced by North Italian models, such as
Giulio Romano
Giulio Romano (, ; – 1 November 1546), is the acquired name of Giulio Pippi, who was an Italian painter and architect. He was a pupil of Raphael, and his stylistic deviations from High Renaissance classicism help define the sixteenth-centu ...
's frescos in Mantua, through German intermediaries.
His only extant painting is a ''Resurrection of Lazarus'' (in the
Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe
The Staatliche Kunsthalle (State Art Gallery) is an art museum in Karlsruhe, Germany.
The museum, created by architect Heinrich Hübsch, opened in 1846 after nine years of work in a neoclassical building next to the Karlsruhe Castle and the ...
), signed and dated 1582 or 1587.
The ''Architectura''
![Dietterlin, Architectura, Composita, plate 178](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Dietterlin%2C_Architectura%2C_Composita%2C_plate_178.jpg)
Dietterlin's architectural treatise ''Architectvra: Von Außtheilung, Symmetria vnd Proportion der Fünff Seulen'' was first published in separate parts in 1593 and 1594, and finally in a combined and expanded edition in 1598. The book described the
classical order
An order in architecture is a certain assemblage of parts subject to uniform established proportions, regulated by the office that each part has to perform.
Coming down to the present from Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman civilization, the arch ...
s and their character and proper use, as was traditional in such books. Dietterlin, however, showed less interest in the proportions of the order than in their ornamentation. According to the architectural historian Torbjörn Fulton, Dietterlin treats the orders "more as a basis or excuse for the development of a bizarre ornamental fantasy than as didactic examples of classical architectural ornamentation". Like other theoreticians, he ascribed masculine and feminine qualities to the orders. In giving them an appropriate ornamentation that would agree with these qualities, he borrowed from older forms of ornament, including
Gothic tracery
Tracery is an architecture, architectural device by which windows (or screens, panels, and vaults) are divided into sections of various proportions by stone ''bars'' or ''ribs'' of Molding (decorative), moulding. Most commonly, it refers to the s ...
. Dietterlin was dependent on many older models, and like other representatives of the Northern Renaissance (such as
Hans Vredeman de Vries
Hans Vredeman de Vries (1527 – c. 1607) was a Dutch Renaissance architect, painter, and engineer. Vredeman de Vries is known for his publication in 1583 on garden design and his books with many examples on ornaments (1565) and perspective (1604 ...
) he filled his surfaces with
scrollwork
The scroll in art is an element of ornament and graphic design featuring spirals and rolling incomplete circle motifs, some of which resemble the edge-on view of a book or document in scroll form, though many types are plant-scrolls, which l ...
,
strapwork
In the history of art and design, strapwork is the use of stylised representations in ornament of ribbon-like forms. These may loosely imitate leather straps, parchment or metal cut into elaborate shapes, with piercings, and often interwoven in ...
, gemshapes and
grotesque
Since at least the 18th century (in French and German as well as English), grotesque has come to be used as a general adjective for the strange, mysterious, magnificent, fantastic, hideous, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting, and thus ...
s. Dietterlin had Northern European contemporaries who likewise integrated Gothic elements in their designs, but he was unusual in the degree of blending of elements of different origin. While others kept Gothic elements clearly separate from Renaissance forms, Dietterlin would cover Renaissance elements in Gothic tracery or allow one to morph midway into the other.
[Fulton, p. 166-167.]
See also
*
List of German painters
This is a list of German painters.
A
> second column was into info box -->
* Hans von Aachen (1552–1615)
* Aatifi (born 1965)
* Karl Abt (1899–1985)
* Tomma Abts (born 1967)
* Andreas Achenbach (1815–1910)
* Oswald Achenbach (1827 ...
Notes
Bibliography
Primary sources
*Dietterlin, Wendel:
Architectvra: Von Außtheilung, Symmetria vnd Proportion der Fünff Seulen, und aller darauß volgender Kunst Arbeit, von Fenstern, Caminen ...'. Nürnberg, 1598
*
' All the editions on line, website "Architectura".
Secondary sources
* von Borries, J. E.: "Brentel
rändel; Brendel Friedrich, I", ''
Grove Art Online
''Grove Art Online'' is the online edition of ''The Dictionary of Art'', often referred to as the ''Grove Dictionary of Art'', and part of Oxford Art Online, an internet gateway to online art reference publications of Oxford University Press, ...
''. Retrieved on 26 December 2008.
*Fulton, Torbjörn: ''Stuckarbeten i svenska byggnadsmiljöer från äldre Vasatid''
tucco decoration in Swedish architectural settings of the early Vasa period (Ars Suetica, 16.) Uppsala: Uppsala University, 1994.
*Heck, Michèle-Caroline, "Dietterlin, Wendel
rapp, Wendling, ''
Grove Art Online
''Grove Art Online'' is the online edition of ''The Dictionary of Art'', often referred to as the ''Grove Dictionary of Art'', and part of Oxford Art Online, an internet gateway to online art reference publications of Oxford University Press, ...
''. Retrieved on 26 December 2008.
*Lambert, A.:
Das ehemalige Lusthaus in Stuttgart, ''Schweizerische Bauzeitung'', Vol. 41/42 (1903), pp. 41–43
*Martin, Kurt,
, ''
Neue Deutsche Biographie
''Neue Deutsche Biographie'' (''NDB''; literally ''New German Biography'') is a biographical reference work. It is the successor to the ''Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'' (ADB, Universal German Biography). The 26 volumes published thus far cover ...
'' 3 (Berlin 1957), pp. 702–703.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dietterlin, Wendel
German Renaissance painters
German printmakers
Mannerist artists
German Mannerist painters
16th-century births
1599 deaths
Architectural theoreticians
People from Pfullendorf
16th-century German painters
German male painters
Year of birth uncertain