Hermann Wislicenus (20 September 1825 – 25 April 1899) was a German historical painter. He is chiefly known for his

mural A mural is any piece of Graphic arts, graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' ...

paintings in the

Imperial Palace of Goslar The Imperial Palace of Goslar () is a historical building complex at the foot of the Rammelsberg hill in the south of the town of Goslar north of the Harz mountains, central Germany. It covers an area of about 340 by 180 metres. The palace grou ...

Biography

Born in

Eisenach Eisenach () is a Town#Germany, town in Thuringia, Germany with 42,000 inhabitants, west of Erfurt, southeast of Kassel and northeast of Frankfurt. It is the main urban centre of western Thuringia, and bordering northeastern Hesse, Hessian re ...

in the

Thuringia Thuringia (; officially the Free State of Thuringia, ) is one of Germany, Germany's 16 States of Germany, states. With 2.1 million people, it is 12th-largest by population, and with 16,171 square kilometers, it is 11th-largest in area. Er ...

n Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Wislicenus studied at the

Dresden Academy of Fine Arts The Dresden Academy of Fine Arts (German language, German ''Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden''), often abbreviated HfBK Dresden or simply HfBK, is a vocational university of visual arts located in Dresden, Germany. The present institutio ...

and later became a student of Eduard Bendemann and Julius Schnorr. His first art work, “Abundance and Destitution,” was purchased by the Dresden Gallery in 1853. A stipend from the Grand Duke of Weimar enabled him to study in Italy (1853–1857) where he lived in Rome and became a follower of Peter von Cornelius and the

Nazarene movement The epithet Nazarene was adopted by a group of early 19th-century German Romantic painters who aimed to revive spirituality in art. The name Nazarene came from a term of derision used against them for their affectation of a biblical manner of c ...

. Upon his return to Germany, he settled in

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state (Germany), German state of Thuringia, in Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany between Erfurt to the west and Jena to the east, southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together w ...

and opened his own studio. In Spring 1868, he was appointed professor at the Düsseldorf Academy. In 1872 several of his works perished in a devastating fire and were re-created by Wislicenus in the following years.

Works

In an 1877 competition for the decoration of the restored Goslar ''Kaiserpfalz'', he won the first prize, and, assisted by some of his pupils, within twenty years completed a series of 68 frescoes postulating a continuity of imperial rule from

Charlemagne Charlemagne ( ; 2 April 748 – 28 January 814) was List of Frankish kings, King of the Franks from 768, List of kings of the Lombards, King of the Lombards from 774, and Holy Roman Emperor, Emperor of what is now known as the Carolingian ...

to the Prussian-led

German Empire The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...

. In the course of German unification, the Imperial Palace, after century-long decay, was under restoration since 1868. Wislicenus's pictorial agenda became an icon of the Romantic recourse to medieval traditions that served the inner identity of the ' Lesser German' Reich established in 1871. Among other oil paintings, watercolors, and cartoons, he executed "Night With Its Retinue," for the Grand Duke of Weimar, the "Myth of Prometheus" (1862, Leipzig Museum), "The Flood of Deucalion" (1865, Weimar Museum); the mural paintings "Brutus as Judge of his Sons" and "The Mother of the Gracchi," in the staircase of the Härtel Roman House at

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

; "Fancy Borne by the Dreams" (Schaek Gallery, Munich); "Angels Singing Psalms," mural painting (Grand-ducal chapel, Weimar). In Düsseldorf, he painted "The Four Seasons" (1877, National Gallery, Berlin).

Sources

* * Siegfried Gehrecke: ''Hermann Wislicenus 1825–1899'', Verlag Erich Goltze, Göttingen 1987,

External links

Hermann Wislicenus
at artfact.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Wislicenus, Hermann 1825 births 1899 deaths People from Eisenach 19th-century German painters 19th-century German male artists Academic staff of Kunstakademie Düsseldorf German history painters German male painters 19th-century painters of historical subjects