Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld - Ferdinand Olivier 1817

Johann Heinrich Ferdinand Olivier (1785–1841) was a German painter associated with the

Nazarene movement The epithet Nazarene was adopted by a group of early 19th-century German Romantic painters who aimed to revive spirituality in art. The name Nazarene came from a term of derision used against them for their affectation of a biblical manner of c ...

Life

Olivier was born in Dessau on 1 April 1785, to a family of Swiss-French descent. He began his artistic education in 1801 by taking drawing lessons from Carl Wilhelm Kolbe, and also studied with the woodblock printers Christian Haldenwang and Johann Friedrich Unger. In 1804 he moved to Dresden with his brother

Heinrich Heinrich may refer to: People * Heinrich (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name) * Heinrich (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) *Hetty (given name), a given name (including a list of peo ...

. There he studied with

Jacob Wilhelm Mechau Jacob Wilhelm Mechau (1745-1808) was a German landscape painter, graphic artist and etcher. His style was part of the transition from Classicism to Romanticism. Biography His father, Daniel Simon Mechau, was an accountant for the city council ...

and

Karl Ludwig Kaaz Karl Ludwig Kaaz, or Katz (22 January 1773, Karlsruhe - 14 July 1810, Dresden) was a German painter, known primarily for his landscapes. Biography His father, Georg Jakob Katz (1723–1775), was a tax collector. After his mother's death in 178 ...

, copied old masters in the Gemäldegalerie, and got to know the artists Caspar David Friedrich and

Philipp Otto Runge Philipp Otto Runge (; 1777–1810) was a German artist, a draftsman, painter, and color theorist. Runge and Caspar David Friedrich are often regarded as the leading painters of the German Romantic movement.Koerner, Joseph Leo. 1990. ''Caspar Dav ...

. Between 1807 and 1810 he was employed on a diplomatic mission to Paris in the service of Prince Leopold Friedrich Franz von Anhalt-Dessau. While there he often visited the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

, particularly admiring the works of Northern Renaissance artists such as Jan van Eyck and

Hans Memling Hans Memling (also spelled Memlinc; c. 1430 – 11 August 1494) was a painter active in Flanders, who worked in the tradition of Early Netherlandish painting. He was born in the Middle Rhine region and probably spent his childhood in Mainz. He ...

, who had a profound effect on his style. While still in Paris he painted, in collaboration with his brother Heinrich, two works for the chapel on the Prince's estate at

Wörlitz is a town and a former municipality in the district of Wittenberg, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 1 January 2011, it has been part of the town Oranienbaum-Wörlitz. It is situated on the left bank of the Elbe, east of Dessau. The historic p ...

Novotny 1978, p.123 and began a life-sized portrait of Napoleon on his horse, which he seems only to have finished after leaving the city. In 1810 he returned to Dessau. He toured the

Harz Mountains The Harz () is a highland area in northern Germany. It has the highest elevations for that region, and its rugged terrain extends across parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The name ''Harz'' derives from the Middle High German ...

with his brother, Friedrich, before settling in Vienna in 1811. There he got to know, and came under the influence of, the landscape painter Joseph Koch. Fritz Novotny contrasts Olivier's paintings of this period – "artificial landscapes with their wings – typical Nazarene work" – with the precise, closely observed drawings he made of the suburbs of Vienna at the same time in which he shows "by means of things small and insignificant in themselves, the might of the invisible forces of nature, the infinity and silence of space". Olivier visited Salzburg in 1815 and 1817, making drawings which, in 1822, he used as the basis of a series of lithographs in the which Austrian landscapes form the background to Christian iconography. In 1817 he became a member of the "Lukasband" (usually translated as the "Brotherhood of Saint Luke"), a fraternity of artists, often known as the "Nazarenes", which had been founded by Friedrich Overbeck and

Franz Pforr Franz Pforr (5 April 1788 – 16 June 1812) was a painter of the German Nazarene movement. Biography He was born in Frankfurt am Main. He received his earliest training from his father, the painter Johann Georg Pforr (1745–98), and his uncl ...

eight years earlier. Olivier was the only member of the group never to have visited Italy. In 1830 he moved to Munich, where, three years later, he was appointed secretary of the academy and professor of art history.Artist biography in ''German Masters of the Nineteenth Century'' (1981), p.270 He died at Munich on 11 February 1841. His two younger brothers Friedrich and

were also artists. His great-niece was Dr. Marianne Schmidl (1890 in Berchtesgaden; died April 1942 in the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

), the first woman to graduate with a doctorate in Ethnology from the University of Vienna. Olivier-abraham-isaac

Nazi-looted art

In January 2015, the Kupferstich-Kabinett of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden restituted Olivier's ''Wilted Leaves'' to the heirs of Dr. Marianne Schmidl, who was plundered and murdered in the Holocaust

References

Sources

''German Masters of the Nineteenth Century: Paintings and Drawings from the Federal Republic of Germany''
Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1981. Free download available. *

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Olivier, Ferdinand 19th-century German painters 19th-century German male artists German male painters People from Dessau-Roßlau 1785 births 1841 deaths Nazarene painters