Johann Baptist Wilhelm August Weber (10 January 1817, in
Frankfurt am Main
Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...
– 11 September 1873, in
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...
) was a German painter; associated with the
Düsseldorfer Malerschule.
Life and work
He began studying landscape painting in his hometown, with Carl Heinrich Rosenkranz (1801-1851), then moved to
Darmstadt
Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...
in 1835, where he continued his studies with the
court painter
A court painter was an artist who painted for the members of a royal or princely family, sometimes on a fixed salary and on an exclusive basis where the artist was not supposed to undertake other work. Painters were the most common, but the cour ...
,
Johann Heinrich Schilbach
Johann Heinrich Schilbach (28 September 1798, Barchfeld - 9 May 1851, Darmstadt) was a German landscape painter.
Life and work
He studied in Darmstadt with the landscape painter, Johann Georg Primavesi. In 1818, he took an extended study tri ...
. This was followed by a study trip to Switzerland.
Upon returning to Frankfurt, he studied at the
Städelschule
The Städelschule, full name Hochschule für Bildende Künste–Städelschule, is a tertiary school of art in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It accepts about 20 students each year from around 500 applicants, and has a total of approximately 150 ...
until 1838. In that year, he went to Düsseldorf, where he spent a year at the
KunstAkademie, and soon became a teacher himself. His notable students included
Theodor Martens, and
John Robinson Tait. Due to his proven ability, he was appointed a Professor by King
Friedrich Wilhelm III
Frederick William III (; 3 August 1770 – 7 June 1840) was King of Prussia from 16 November 1797 until his death in 1840. He was concurrently Elector of Brandenburg in the Holy Roman Empire until 6 August 1806, when the empire was dissolved ...
.
In 1844, he was one of the co-founders of the , and later became a member of the progressive artists' association "
Malkasten
Malkasten (English: "Paintbox") is a progressive German artists' association, founded in Düsseldorf in 1848, during the German revolutions of 1848–1849, March Revolution. Since 1867, their headquarters have been in the Düsseldorf-Pempelfort, P ...
" (Paintbox). In 1863, he was named an honorary member of the Düsseldorfer Künstler-Liedertafel (
Round Table
The Round Table (; ; ; ) is King Arthur's famed table (furniture), table in the Arthurian legend, around which he and his knights congregate. As its name suggests, it has no head, implying that everyone who sits there has equal status, unlike co ...
) and, the following year, he became an Honorary Master of the
Freies Deutsches Hochstift
The Freies Deutsches Hochstift (Free German Foundation) is a literary association based in Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany. It is the owner of the Goethe House, the place where the playwright and poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born and spent his ...
in Frankfurt. In 1871, he developed an eye condition that left him unable to paint for over a year. In 1873, shortly after he had resumed painting, he died of pneumonia.
Although his works are realistic in appearance, most of them are composed of imaginative or
idealistic
Idealism in philosophy, also known as philosophical realism or metaphysical idealism, is the set of metaphysical perspectives asserting that, most fundamentally, reality is equivalent to mind, spirit, or consciousness; that reality is entir ...
elements. The art historian, , described his work as expressing a "Post-Romantic" sensibility, inspired by
Salomon van Ruysdael
Salomon van Ruysdael (c. 1602, Naarden – buried 3 November 1670, Haarlem) was a Dutch Golden Age landscape painter. He was the uncle of Jacob van Ruisdael. . In addition to landscape paintings, he also created
watercolor
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting metho ...
s and
lithographs
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...
.
A large number of his works were damaged or destroyed during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. Many of the paintings subsequently sold as his were actually the work of a Swiss artist, also named August Weber, who lived from 1898 to 1957.
Sources
*
* "Weber, August". In: Friedrich von Boetticher: ''Malerwerke des 19. Jahrhunderts. Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte'', Vol.2/2, Saal–Zwengauer, Boetticher’s Verlag, Dresden 1901, pg.979
Online
* "Weber, August", In: Richard Klapheck: ''Die Kunstsammlungen der Staatlichen Kunstakademie zu Düsseldorf.'' Strucken, Düsseldorf 1928
* "Weber, August", In: ''Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart'', Vol. 35: Waage–Wilhelmson, pp. 215–216, E. A. Seemann, Leipzig, 1942
External links
More works by Weber@ ArtNet
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weber, August
19th-century German painters
German male painters
1817 births
1873 deaths
Deaths from pneumonia in Germany
19th-century German male artists