1561-1629,was a respected Nuremberg apothecary and botanist, best known for his monumental Hortus Eystettensis. He was curator of the garden of Johann Konrad von Gemmingen, prince bishop of Eichstätt in Bavaria. The bishop was an enthusiastic botanist who derived great pleasure from his garden, which was the only important European botanical garden outside Italy. The gardens surrounded the bishop's palace, Willibaldsburg, which was built on a hill overlooking the town. These gardens had been started in 1596 and designed by Besler's colleague, Joachim Camerarius, the Younger (1534-1598), a physician and botanist. Upon Camerarius' death in 1598, Besler had the remainder of Camerarius' plants moved to Eichstätt and carried on the work of planting and supervision. The bishop commissioned Besler to compile a codex of the plants growing in his garden, a task which Besler took sixteen years to complete, the bishop dying shortly before the work was published. Besler had the assistance of his brother and a group of skilled German draughtsmen and engravers, including Sebastian Schedel, an accomplished painter, and Wolfgang Kilian, a skilled engraver from Augsburg. Kilian and his team engraved the initial copper plates, but after the bishop??s death, the operations moved to N??rnberg and a new team of engravers, among whom were Johannes Leypold, Georg Gärtner, Levin and Friedrich van Hulsen, Peter Isselburg, Heinrich Ulrich, Dominicus Custos and Servatius Raeven. Camerarius' nephew, Ludwig Jungermann (1572-1653), was a botanist and wrote the lion's share of the descriptive text. The work was named Hortus Eystettensis (Garden at Eichstätt). The emphasis in botanicals of previous centuries had been on medicinal and culinary herbs, and these had usually been depicted in a crude manner. The images were often inadequate for identification, and had little claim to being aesthetic. The Hortus Eystettensis changed botanical art overnight. The plates were of garden flowers, herbs and vegetables, exotic plants such as castor-oil and arum lilies.   Related Paintings of Basilius Besler :. | European city landscape, street landsacpe, construction, frontstore, building and architecture. 198 | Civilizing missionaries, teachers apostolicos | Das Urteil des Paris | Mme.Felix Vallotton | Julie Manet |
Related Artists:
emile-Rene Menard
(1861 - 1930) was a French painter born in Paris. From early childhood he was immersed in an artistic environment: Corot, Millet and the Barbizon painters frequented his family home, familiarizing him thus with both landscape and antique subjects. Menard studied at the Academy Jullian from 1880 after having been a student of Baudry, Bouguereau, and Henri Lehmann. He participated in the Salon of the Secession in Munich, and the Salon de la Libre Esthetique in Brussels during 1897. Several personal exhibitions were also devoted to him at the Georges Small Gallery. In 1921 he exhibited in the Twelfth Salon along with Henri Martin and Edmond Aman-Jean. Galleries in Buffalo, New York and Boston, Massachusetts exposed Menard and his art to the United States. However, the numerous commissions that Menard received from the French government crowned his career; for example, the cycle for the Hautes Etudes e la Sorbonne, the Faculte de Droit, and the fresco Atoms for the Chemistry institute, and finally the Caise des Depôts in Marseilles. Menard's art allies a rigorous, clear classicism with a diffuse and dreamlike brushwork. In 1894, Victor Shoe wrote of Menard in l' Art et la Vie (Art and Life): "visions of a pacified, bathed nature, of dawn and of twilight, where the soul seems to immerse itself in the innocence of daybreak, and breathe the divine anointment that comes with the dawn."
TIBALDI, Pellegrino
Italian Painter, 1527-1596 Painter and architect. Pellegrino Tibaldi's early paintings show the influence of Bagnacavallo and of other Bolognese followers of Raphael, but his actual teacher is unknown. Vasari's claim that his own works in S Michele in Bosco, Bologna, formed Tibaldi's artistic education is hardly borne out by the latter's first efforts. The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine (c. 1545; Bologna, Pin. N.) is, in its classical, hierarchical simplicity, clearly inspired by Raphael's manner as interpreted by his Bolognese imitators; although it also bears delicate marks of Parmigianino's grace, the power of its expressive dignity and the architectural background hint at Tibaldi's future development. Tibaldi's Adoration of the Shepherds
Otto Barth
(18 June 1891 - 3 May 1963) was a highly decorated Generalmajor in the Wehrmacht during World War II who commanded the 30. Infanterie-Division. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership. Otto Barth was captured by Soviet troops following the fall of the Courland Pocket in 1945. He was held until 1955.