Georg Heinrich Crola (6 June 1804,

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...

- 6 May 1879, Ilsenburg am Harz) was a German

landscape painter Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent composi ...

in the mid-19th century. He specialized in the representation of the German forest.

Life

Georg Heinrich Crola was born in

in 1804, the son of the merchant Croll. Difficult domestic conditions forced his parents to send the four year-old Georg Heinrich to live in the family of his maternal grandfather, who was a painter at the

Royal Porcelain Factory Royal Copenhagen, officially the Royal Porcelain Factory ( da, Den Kongelige Porcelænsfabrik), is a Danish manufacturer of porcelain products and was founded in Copenhagen in 1775 under the protection of Danish Dowager Queen Juliane Marie. It i ...

and an art teacher at the state boarding school of

Meissen Meissen (in German orthography: ''Meißen'', ) is a town of approximately 30,000 about northwest of Dresden on both banks of the Elbe river in the Free State of Saxony, in eastern Germany. Meissen is the home of Meissen porcelain, the Albre ...

. His grandfather, recognising his artistic talent, introduced him in Dresden to the painters Johann Christian Klengel, Johann David Schubert and Johann Gottfried Jentzsch who took charge of his education.Eduard Jacobs: Crola, Georg Heinrich
In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Band 47, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1903, p 563–567 After the death of his grandfather in 1822 he lived for a while a wandering life. Around this time he also changed his family name from Croll to Crola so as to avoid conscription by the Saxon government. Around 1823 he was back in Dresden where he made a living from painting boxes. He succeeded in capturing the attention of

Caspar David Friedrich Caspar David Friedrich (5 September 1774 – 7 May 1840) was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landsca ...

and

Johan Christian Dahl Johan Christian Claussen Dahl (24 February 178814 October 1857), often known as or , was a Danish- Norwegian artist who is considered the first great romantic painter in Norway, the founder of the "golden age" of Norwegian painting, and, by som ...

who assisted him in his studies. His talent was also recognised by

Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Ernest I (german: Ernst Anton Karl Ludwig; 2 January 178429 January 1844) was the last sovereign duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (as Ernest III) and, from 1826, the first sovereign duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (as Ernest I). He was the father of A ...

who gave him commissions to paint landscapes and castles in

Gotha Gotha () is the fifth-largest city in Thuringia, Germany, west of Erfurt and east of Eisenach with a population of 44,000. The city is the capital of the Gotha (district), district of Gotha and was also a residence of the Ernestine House of Wet ...

. He used the opportunity to paint many landscapes of the Gotha region.Georg Heinrich Crola, ''HARZLANDSCHAFT- Weiter Blick über das Bergland in die Ebene''
at Lempertz Georg Heinrich Crola - A Thunderstorm on Lake Chiemsee

Georg Heinrich Crola - A Thunderstorm on Lake Chiemsee

Crola went to Munich in 1830, where he studied the old masters as well as the neighboring landscapes. He traveled later to northern Germany where he got to know work of the

Düsseldorf school of painting The Düsseldorf school of painting is a term referring to a group of painters who taught or studied at the Düsseldorf Academy (now the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf or Düsseldorf State Art Academy) during the 1830s and 1840s, when the A ...

. He later visited Berlin where he met his future bride Elise (Elisabeth) Concordia, daughter of a banker and an amateur painter herself. The couple got married in 1840 in

Ilsenburg Ilsenburg () is a town in the district of Harz, in Saxony-Anhalt in Germany. It is situated under the north foot of the Harz Mountains, at the entrance to the Ilse valley with its little river, the Ilse, a tributary of the Oker, about six north ...

and the couple settled there. The pair founded a school for romantic landscape painters. From that time onwards the surrounding low mountains became Crola's most important source of inspiration.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Crola, Georg Heinrich 1804 births 1879 deaths Artists from Dresden German landscape painters 19th-century German painters 19th-century German male artists German male painters Düsseldorf school of painting