1815-1905 German Adolph von Menzel Gallery His father was the headmaster of a school for girls, and intended to educate his son as a professor; but he would not thwart his taste for art. Left an orphan in 1832, Menzel had to maintain his family. In 1833 Sachse of Berlin published his first work, an album of pen-and-ink drawings reproduced on stone, to illustrate Goethe's little poem, Kunstlers Erdenwallen. He executed lithographs in the same manner to illustrate Denkw??rdigkeiten aus der brandenburgisch-preussischen Geschichte; The Five Senses and The Prayer, as well as diplomas for various corporations and societies. From 1839 to 1842 he produced 400 drawings, largely introducing to Germany the technique of wood engraving, to illustrate the Geschichte Friedrichs des Grossen (History of Frederick the Great) by Franz Kugler. He subsequently brought out Friedrichs der Grossen Armee in ihrer Uniformirung (The Uniforms of the Army under Frederick the Great), Soldaten Friedrichs der Grossen (The Soldiers of Frederick the Great); and finally, by order of the king Frederick William IV, he illustrated the works of Frederick the Great, Illustrationen zu den Werken Friedricks des Grossen (1843-1849). By these works Menzel established his claim to be considered one of the first, if not actually the first, of the illustrators of his day in his own line. Pencil drawing by Menzel, 1891.Meanwhile Menzel had set himself to study unaided the art of painting, and he soon produced a great number and variety of pictures, always showing keen observation and honest workmanship in subjects dealing with the life and achievements of Frederick the Great, and scenes of everyday life, such as In the Tuileries, The Ball Supper, and At Confession. Among the most important of these works are The Forge (1875) and The Market-place at Verona. Invited to paint The Coronation of William I at Koenigsberg, he produced an exact representation of the ceremony without regard to the traditions of official painting. In Germany he received many honors, and was the first painter to be given the Order of the Black Eagle in 1898 which included a title of nobility, becoming von Menzel.  Related Paintings of Adolph von Menzel :. | Das Eisenwalzwerk | Die Berlin-Potsdamer Bahn | Berlin Potsdamer Bahn | Fronleichnamsprozession in Hofgastein | Folk theatre in Tyrol |
Related Artists:
william holman hunt,o.m.,r.w.s
1827-1910 English painter. He worked as an office clerk in London from 1839 to 1843, attending drawing classes at a mechanics' institute in the evenings and taking weekly lessons from the portrait painter Henry Rogers. Holman Hunt overcame parental opposition to his choice of career in 1843, and this determined attitude and dedication to art could be seen throughout his working life. In July 1844, at the third attempt, he entered the Royal Academy Schools. His earliest exhibited works, such as Little Nell and her Grandfather (exh. British Institution, 1846; Sheffield, Graves A.G.), reveal few traces of originality, but the reading of John Ruskin's Modern Painters in 1847 was of crucial importance to Holman Hunt's artistic development. It led him to abandon the ambitious Christ and the Two Marys (Adelaide, A.G. S. Australia) in early 1848, when he realized its traditional iconography would leave his contemporaries unmoved. His next major work, the Flight of Madeline and Porphyro during the Drunkenness Attending the Revelry (1848; London, Guildhall A.G.), from John Keats's 'Eve of St Agnes', though displaced into a medieval setting, dramatized an issue dear to contemporary poets and central to Holman Hunt's art: love and youthful idealism versus loyalty to one's family. His first mature painting, it focuses on a moment of psychological crisis in a cramped and shallow picture space.
Edouard Brindeau de Jarny
1867-1943
CORNELIUS, Peter
1824-1874,German composer. Trained as actor and violinist, and friend of artists, poets and writers, he devoted himself to music from the 1840s, finding inspiration in Liszt and the New German School at Weimar in 1852. His first mature works were the lieder opp. 1 and 2 and the song cycle Trauer und Trost op.3, followed by the comic opera Der Barbier von Bagdad (1855-8); all show his literary skill, refreshing simplicity and musical independence from the Liszt circle. In Vienna (1859-65), he wrote his second opera Der Cid and enjoyed fruitful relationships with Brahms, Carl Tausig and above all Wagner, who summoned him to Munich in 1865 as his private repetiteur and teacher at the Royal School of Music. His third opera Gunlöd was never finished. He continued to write poetry and essays defending Wagner and Liszt and translated vocal works by Pergolesi, Berlioz, Liszt and others. Although he revered Wagner, he stood ethically and artistically apart, his work (especially Der Barbier) thus representing an original achievement.