Gerhardt Wilhelm von Reutern (17 July 1794,

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- 22 March 1865,

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...

) was a Baltic-German military officer and painter who co-founded the Artists' Colony at Willingshausen.RusArt Net: Biography
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Life

He was born into a noble family of Baltic-Germans dating back to the 15th Century. He participated in several campaigns during the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

as a cavalry lieutenant and lost his right arm at the Battle of Leipzig. While recuperating with relatives, he took up drawing as a hobby. In the Summer of 1814, he made the acquaintance of

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as t ...

, who urged him to become a painter. They maintained a steady correspondence until Goethe's death in 1832. After serving in several adjutant positions, he resigned from the Army in 1819 with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. As part of his convalescence, he moved to Willingshausen and was married there in 1820. Four years later, he met Ludwig Emil Grimm and the idea for an Artists' Colony was born. They focused on

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scenes and landscapes from the Schwalm.

Studies

Having been self-taught up to this point, he began taking private lessons from his friend Grimm. When the climate in Willingshausen aggravated his wound, he moved to Geneva and studied with the Swiss painter Matthias Gabriel Lory, then attended the Kassel Art Academy where he studied under Karl Glinzer and Johann Martin von Rohden. In 1835, he moved to Düsseldorf and studied with Theodor Hildebrandt at the

Art Academy An art school is an educational institution with a primary focus on the visual arts, including fine art – especially illustration, painting, photography, sculpture, and graphic design. Art schools can offer elementary, secondary, post-seco ...

there. Two years later, he was appointed to a position as Court Painter for the Imperial Russian family, with the right to live abroad, a concession obtained by his friend

Vasily Zhukovsky Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky (russian: Василий Андреевич Жуковский, Vasiliy Andreyevich Zhukovskiy; – ) was the foremost Russian poet of the 1810s and a leading figure in Russian literature in the first half of the 19t ...

, who would later become his son-in-law. In 1841, he invited his friend Jakob Fürchtegott Dielmann to oversee the Artists' Colony and spent his time moving between Russia, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. After three years of travelling, he settled in Frankfurt where he established a studio at the Villa Metzler. In the early 1860s, he was forced to give up painting due to failing eyesight, rheumatism and unspecified "nervous complaints", probably brought about by the successive deaths of several friends and family members; including his wife, daughter Elisabeth and youngest son, Christoph.

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Reutern, Gerhardt Wilhelm von 1794 births 1865 deaths 19th-century German painters 19th-century German male artists German male painters Baltic-German people Counts of Germany Gerhardt Wilhelm Artists with disabilities

Life

Studies

References

Further reading

External links