Carl Eduard Schuch (30 September 1846 – 13 September 1903) was an
Austria
Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
n painter, born in
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
, who spent most of his lifetime outside Austria, in
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
,
Italy
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
and
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
. He painted primarily
still life
A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, human-m ...
s and
landscapes
A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...
.
From 1865 to 1867, he studied landscape painting under the academician Ludwig Halauska. Among his early works are studies of heads which he said he wished to paint "like still-lifes, tone by tone, without emotion".
During the period 1882–94 he was based in Paris, where he was greatly impressed by the work of
Claude Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (, ; ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of Impressionism painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During his ...
—whom he described as "the Rembrandt of ''plein-air'' painting"—although he was attracted most of all to
Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (; ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), mononymously known as Rembrandt was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and Drawing, draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in ...
and the artists of the
Barbizon school.
[Forster-Hahn and Riopelle 2001, p. 164] In 1884 and 1885 he spent the summer months in the
Netherlands
, Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
, studying the
Dutch old masters as well as the contemporary painters of the
Hague School
The Hague School () is a group of artists who lived and worked in The Hague between 1860 and 1890. Their work was heavily influenced by the realist painters of the French Barbizon school. The painters of the Hague school generally made use of re ...
, and filling notebooks with detailed descriptions of the colors he observed in paintings that he admired. Of all the artists belonging to the circle around
Wilhelm Leibl
Wilhelm Maria Hubertus Leibl (October 23, 1844 – December 4, 1900) was a German realist painter of portraits and scenes of peasant life.
Biography
Leibl was born in Cologne, where his father was the director of the Cathedral choir. He was a ...
(called the ''Leibl-Kreis''), Schuch was the most devoted to color.
His work marks the transition from the realist tradition to the modern movement in Vienna.
Schuch's most famous, and longest friendship was with the artist
Karl Hagemeister. The two met in Bavaria, traveled all over central Europe together, and settled for 3 years in
Ferch, a small village south of Berlin. The two shared a very small house, sharing a single bedroom and painting the nature around Ferch. The robust Hagemeister tended to the sensitive Schuch by cooking, hunting, and fishing for the pair. It has been speculated that the two were lovers. Their friendship ended when Schuch moved to Paris. The last occasion of their meeting was when Schuch was visited by Hagemeister. This led to a disagreement about the merit of Hagemeister's then completed "Teller mit Austern" (1884), prompting Hagemeister to promptly dispose of 6 of his own works in the Seine, and a cessation of their relationship. Upon the death of Schuch, Max Liebermann prompted Hagemeister to write Schuch's biography.
[Karl Hagemeister: Carl Schuch. Sein Leben und seine Werke, Cassirer, Berlin 1913]
Schuch was financially independent and made little effort to exhibit his work; in his lifetime he sold only one painting.
[Lasko 2003, p. 18] His later years were marked by a degenerative illness, and he stopped painting in 1891. He died in Vienna.
Gallery
File:Carl Schuch - Ansicht von Olevano.jpg, ''View of Olevano'', c.1875, Lower Saxony State Museum
The Lower Saxon State Museum Hanover (, or simply ) is the state museum of Lower Saxony in Hanover, Germany. Situated adjacent to the New Town Hall, the museum comprises the state gallery (), featuring paintings and sculptures from the Middle ...
File:Carl Schuch (1)Houses in Ferch.JPG, ''Houses in the wetlands by Lake Schwielow'', between 1878 and 1881, Alte Nationalgalerie
File:Carl Schuch - Schmiede in Weβling III.jpg, ''Forge in Weßling'', 1876, Morat-Institut, Freiburg
Freiburg im Breisgau or simply Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of abou ...
File:Schuch Still life.jpg, ''Still Life with leeks, cheese and apples'', before 1888, National Museum, Warsaw
The National Museum in Warsaw (, MNW) is a national museum in Warsaw, one of the largest museums in Poland and the largest in the capital. It comprises a rich collection of ancient art (Art of ancient Egypt, Egyptian, Art in ancient Greece, Greek, ...
File:Carl Schuch - Matteostilleben.jpg, ''Matthew (?) still-life'', 1879/80, National Museum in Wrocław
Notes
References
* Boehm, Gottfried; Dorn, Roland, and Morat, Franz A. (ed.): ''Carl Schuch (1846-1903)'', Kunsthalle Mannheim & Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus München, 1986
* Buberl, Brigitte (ed.): ''Cézanne - Manet - Schuch: Drei Wege zur autonomen Kunst'', Hirmer Verlag, München 2000
* Forster-Hahn, Françoise, and Christopher Riopelle (2001). ''Spirit of an age: nineteenth-century paintings from the Nationalgalerie, Berlin;
ublished to accompany an exhibition at the National Gallery London, 8 March - 13 May 2001 and at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. 10 June - 3 September 2001'. London: National Gallery.
*
Hagemeister, Karl: ''Carl Schuch, sein Leben und seine Werke'', Bruno Cassirer, Berlin 1913
* Lasko, Peter (2003). ''The Expressionist Roots of Modernism''. Manchester University Press.
* Ruhmer, Eberhard: ''Der Leibl-Kreis und die Reine Malerei'', Rosenheimer Verlagshaus, Rosenheim 1986
* Schönmetzler, Klaus J. (ed.): ''Wilhelm Leibl und seine Malerfreunde'', Rosenheimer Verlagshaus, Rosenheim 2001
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schuch, Carl
1846 births
1903 deaths
19th-century Austrian painters
Austrian male painters
19th-century Austrian male artists