Carl Christian Vogel von Vogelstein - Basilius von Ramdohr

Friedrich Wilhelm Basilius von Ramdohr (21 July 1757 – 26 July 1822) was a German conservative

lawyer A lawyer is a person who is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters. The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as w ...

art critic An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogue ...

and

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

based in

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

. From 1806 he was a

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

n diplomat to

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

and

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

Life

Basilius von Ramdohr was born on the family estate, the ''Rittergut'' Drübber (near Nienburg), which was their property between 1686 and 1839. He studied

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

and

aesthetics Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Ph ...

at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen (, commonly referred to as Georgia Augusta), is a Public university, public research university in the city of Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1734 ...

, before commencing a long and glamorous career as an art-critic and diplomat. He is remembered partly for his book ''Venus Urania'' (1798), an early work on the psychology of love and friendship (the book's name denotes " celestial love"), but mostly for the so-called "Ramdohr Affair" of 1809 (''Ramdohrstreit'') concerning his attack on the painter

Caspar David Friedrich Caspar David Friedrich (; 5 September 1774 – 7 May 1840) was a German Romanticism, German Romantic Landscape painting, landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation, whose often symbolic, and anti ...

. Although he had a high reputation during his lifetime, to many contemporaries like

Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, philosopher and historian. Schiller is considered by most Germans to be Germany's most important classical playwright. He was born i ...

, Schlegel and

Lessing Lessing is a German surname of Slavic origin. The original Sorbian form, ''Lěsnik'', means either "forest dweller" or "woodman", ''lěs'' meaning "wood forest". People with the surname Lessing include a German family of writers, artists, musicians ...

he was not to be taken seriously. In his early twenties he had a brief affair with Charlotte Kestner ''née'' Buff, the model for Lotte in ''

The Sorrows of Young Werther ''The Sorrows of Young Werther'' (; ), or simply ''Werther'', is a 1774 epistolary novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, which appeared as a revised edition in 1787. It was one of the main novels in the ''Sturm und Drang'' ...

''. The girl who had rejected Goethe in 1772 found herself rejected by Ramdohr in 1781. He died at

in 1822.

''Der Ramdohrstreit''

In the 17–21 January 1809 edition of the ''Zeitung für die elegante Welt'' he published an article severely criticising

's painting ''

Cross in the Mountains (Tetschen Altar) A cross is a religious symbol consisting of two intersecting lines, usually perpendicular to each other. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally. A cross of oblique lines, in the shape of the Latin letter X, is termed a saltire in ...

'' (1808) and the school of

German Romanticism German Romanticism () was the dominant intellectual movement of German-speaking countries in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, influencing philosophy, aesthetics, literature, and criticism. Compared to English Romanticism, the German vari ...

to which it belonged. He was disturbed by the unacademic style of the painting, having little in common with the traditions established by Claude Lorraine and

Jacob van Ruisdael Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael (; 1629 – 10 March 1682) was a Dutch painter, draughtsman, and etcher. He is generally considered the pre-eminent landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age, a period of great wealth and cultural achie ...

, and deeply indignant that Friedrich should have presented it as an

altarpiece An altarpiece is a painting or sculpture, including relief, of religious subject matter made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting or sculpture, ...

to a private chapel. "Indeed it is a truly presumptuous thing, that Landscape Painting should try to slither into our churches and clamber onto our altars," he wrote. Ramdohr brooked no compromise in denying landscape self-sufficiency. To him, landscapes were formless compositions which could touch the viewer only superficially. The public response to the article was unfavourable; nevertheless, Friedrich's supporters felt obliged to reformulate their positions more precisely. The debate about the relative merits of unmediated, spontaneous expression versus strict classical form (landscape painting representing the former) began in earnest at this time.

Works

*''Kaiser Otto der Dritte, ein Trauerspiel'' ("Otto III, a Tragedy", anonymous, 1783) *''Ueber Mahlerei und Bildhauerarbeit in Rom'' ("On Painting and Architecture in Rome", 3 volumes, 1787) *''Charis: Ueber das Schöne und die Schönheit in den nachbildenden Künsten'' ("Charis, or On the Beautiful and Beauty in the Imitative Arts", 2 volumes, 1793) *''Venus Urania: Ueber die Natur der Liebe, ueber ihre Veredlung und Verschönerung'' ("On the Nature of Love, its Ennoblement and Beautification", 4 volumes, 1798) *''Moralische Erzählungen'' ("Moral Tales", 2 volumes, 1799)

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ramdohr, Basilius Von 1757 births 1822 deaths People from Verden (district) German journalists German male journalists German art critics German male writers 18th-century German writers