17th century German painting

1. Some outstanding German painters

As such, the German schools of painting are poorly represented in the period under review; all prominent German artists worked under strong Italian and Dutch influence. Nevertheless, one can single out a number of prominent German painters, distinguished by their original style within the Baroque.

The history of painting of the XVII century does not know the "German school". About the independent development of native crops and there is no talk in Germany of this time, even in the field of engraving. The most fascinating German painters learned their art from foreigners and practiced it also abroad. In fact, in Holland, as we have seen, such masters as Knüpfer from Leipzig, Flink from Kleve, Netscher from Heidelberg, and Bakguisen from Emden, gained honor and fortune; in England they were famous, as we shall see, Peter Lely from Westphalia and Gottfried Kniller from Lübeck; finally, Elsheimer, the only great and purely German master of this time, had chosen Rome as his domicile before 1600. On the other hand, crowds of foreign, mostly Dutch painters of the second rank found a warm welcome and a profitable occupation at the German princely courts. On the mediocre or even dependent Dutch portrait painters, flower and ceiling Berlin court painters wrote Seidel. The Viennese court was shared by the Belgians, along with the Italians, in the direction of Kanlass, as a pupil of Rubens Franz Lüix or Lex (1604–1668), who was assessed by Ebenstein. In Heidelberg, the Dutchmen Valleran Vaillian and Gerrit Berkgeide acted, in Düsseldorf, where it was easy to get from Holland, worked only through the most famous academic painters, like Eglon van der Neuer and his pupil Andrien van der Werf, and painters of dead nature and colors of the caliber of Jan Veenix and Rachel Ruysh. Even the most skilled engravers who lived in Germany at that time were Dutch by birth, as Antwerp Aegidius Sadeler, in Prague (circa 1570–1629), remarkable for his engravings from old masters, or for artistic education, as well-known portrait painters Lucas (1579–1637) and Wolfgang (1581–1662) Kilian in Augsburg. Baselzem was Matthäus Merian (1593–1650), which illustrated the famous description of different countries in Frankfurt; his main pupil was Prague-born Wenzel Gollar (1607–1677), according to Lipman, who engraved nearly 3,000 sheets with “his thin needle with velvety soft shadows and a pleasant touch”. Skillful, rather independent portrait painter Johann Adam Seipel (1662-1717), to whom Hermann Gibert devoted a finely felt little book, however, was a native of Strasbourg. Especially noteworthy is the fact that the Germans are still very closely connected with the development of black or loosened engraving. Its inventor Ludwig von Siegen (1609, died after 1671), as shown by Seidel, was born in Utrecht from German parents, but entrusted his secret (about 1654) in Germany to Prince Ruprecht of Palatinate (1619–1682) who transferred it to The Netherlands and in England, and Theodor Caspar von Fürstenberg (died in 1675), who spread it in Germany.

For all that, one true German painter, Frankfurt Adam Elsheimer (1578–1610), who, in addition to Bode, was particularly engaged in Weizsäcker, is worth many other artists. His teacher, Philippe Uffenbach (1566–1636) in Frankfurt, to whom he deservedly deserved Donner von Richter, a third generation pupil, Grünewald, a transitional master who grew up on German soil, whose preserved paintings, as “Grieving Mary” (1588) in the assembly Goltsgauzen and "Assumption of Mary" (1599) in the city museum in Frankfurt, are a significant legacy of the dry old German trend of the good old time. Elsheimer was still in Frankfurt in 1598, but then he moved to Rome, where he quickly developed his new style that attracted attention. The manner of Elsheimer to carry out a complete balance between the figures and the landscape or the interior in small pictures, plasticly isolate individual groups of people and trees and picturesquely place them in the overall composition, achieving a plastic impression using the sunlight of the landscape or light and shadow of the room, this style is his real property , although the beginning of such reproduction of light can be traced through Uffenbach to Grünewald, and its execution of the landscape, with all its novelty, was prepared by Jan Breyge I eat a senior; Rottengammer and Brill, on whom he, in turn, had influence. Elsheimer's early paintings as “The Sacrifice at Lystra” at the Stadel Institute and “The Baptist's Sermon” in Munich. (Bode denies that this painting belongs to him, but Weizsäcker returned it to him) are made even sharper and drier than the paintings of his mature age, differing from the early ones mainly in his dense enamel writing. The Munich gallery is still the richest in his works, even after the “Pursuit of Happiness” was recognized as a copy of the Knüpfer from Elsheimer. From the night scenes, we should mention the “Fire of Troy” and the subtly felt lunar landscape with “Flight to Egypt”; from the day - “The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence "and a small landscape idyll.

Fig. 187. "Jupiter in Philemon and Baukis." Adam Elsheimer's painting in the Royal Dresden Gallery

But more remarkable, if you highlight "Joseph", whom we must return to Moiart, the Dresden master painting "Jupiter in Philemon and Bawkidy" and "Flight into Egypt", with the best side showing the art of Elsheimer to write light and shade interior rooms and his manner of solar lighting the landscape. The "Youth of Bacchus" in Frankfurt worthily adjoins them. More powerful influence than through his German imitators, like Jacob Koenig, took Elsheimer through his Dutch engraver Hendrik Goodt (1585–1630) and the Dutch painters Teniers Moyart, Lastman, Pinas, Pehlenburg, etc., who developed his own aspirations. His strong rounding of tree crowns, the clear distribution of masses and the image of flickering light undoubtedly influenced Claude Lorrain, the great Lorraine-Roman landscape painter.

If Elsheimer is the only great German master of transition time, then the second Frankfurt Joachim von Sandrart (1606–1688) is the only significant German representative of baroque painting. Sandrart courageously fought with a pen and brush to preserve German artistic life. His great essay "Deutsche Akademie" (Deutsche Akademie), thoroughly studied by Sponsor, despite its shortcomings, contributed greatly to the preservation of the reputation of the artistic people for the Germans. As an engraver, Zandrart was a student of the aforementioned Egidiy Sadeler in Prague, as a painter - a student of Gerard Gonthorst in Utrecht, and as a practicing artist he worked in Italy, where he completed his education in Frankfurt, Amsterdam, in his Bavarian Shtokau estate, in Augsburg and in Nuremberg. As a painter, he hesitated between the Italian influences, which he preferred in historical painting, and the Dutch experiences that dominated his portrait art, but he also retained a certain admixture of expressive German style. Paul Kutter, lovingly describing his artistic activities, has hundreds of paintings of his brush that have survived. Church paintings he wrote mainly for southern Germany and Austria; The South German collections also contain most of his extensive secular themes. The life-size Italian Fish Merchant (1644), in Braunschweig, occupies an exceptional position between his works. The most attractive are his portraits. He wrote only two powerful portrait groups - the group of shooters of Captain Bicker (1638) in Amsterdam, which can be compared with the best paintings of the State Museum, despite the somewhat deliberate distribution of shooters around the bust of the French Queen, and a great dinner of ambassadors of the Nuremberg World Congress (1650) in Nuremberg Town Hall - they would provide him the place of the most important painter of its kind in Germany. The earlier Amsterdam picture is fresher and warmer in color and stronger in pictorial design than the later Nuremberg, which is drier and weaker in execution, but with a more defined chiaroscuro that envelops the chairs with blue cushions. Nevertheless, it is impossible to hide that the best paintings of Sandrart do not possess the artistic persuasiveness of independent, masterful works.

2. General overview of other painters

The development of painting proceeded in various ways in the northern and southern German lands. In the south, Italian art had a greater influence, in the north - the Netherlands. With this, with rare exceptions, there were no masters of a national scale; the overwhelming majority of German painters of the period were local values.

We can only review the rest of the 17th century German painters by groups.

Southern Germans in most cases made pilgrimages to Italy and embarked on the path of the dominant Baroque art of the "eclectic". In the area of ​​the great “historical painting” of Württemberg Johann Heinrich Schönfeld (1609–1675), they wrote many Catholic altar images for South German churches and many secular paintings for South German palaces, then the famous Prague native Karl Scert, and then secular paintings for the South German palaces, then the famous Prague native Karl Scert, and the artist, then the famous artist of the North Carolina, and the secular paintings for the South German palaces; around 1605–1674), numerous paintings of which in the churches of Bohemia, in the Rudolfinum in Prague and in the Dresden Gallery justify with their exhausted eclecticism a very negative assessment of his painting by his biographer afa Pazaurek; further, they also belong to the Munich Karl Lot (1632–1698), nicknamed Carlotto, who worked mainly in Venice, and his students in Vienna, Johann Franz Michael Rotmayr (1660–1730), who wrote many colorless and shapeless paintings for Austrian churches and palaces, and Tyrolean Peter Strudel from Strudendorf (1660–1719), consisting from 1689 as a court painter, and in 1692 founded a private academy to spread his liquid art. The portrait painter of this group, Jan Kupetsky (1667–1740) was a Hungarian who moved to Nuremberg. Niari dedicated an essay to him. On the most advantageous side, his portrait is broad, with a heavy color, portrait-painting not free from posture, yet giving typically grasped heads in seven Brunswick portraits.

Italian landscape painters, Johann Frans Ermels (1621–1699), whose italism surpassed Jan Bota in Utrecht, and Willem van Bemmel (1630–1708), a Utrecht native, worked mainly in Nuremberg, and Christian Ludwig Agricola from Regensburg (1667), who worked mostly in Nuremberg (1667–6767), Nürnberg, and Christian Ludwig Agricola from Regensburg (1667), worked mostly in Nuremberg (1667–6767), and Ludwig Agricola from Regensburg (166767) worked mainly in Nuremberg, and Ludwig Agricola from Regensburg (166767) worked mainly in Nuremberg, and Christian Ludwig Agricola from Regensburg (1667), worked mostly in Nürnberg, Nuremberg (1667–1667) from Regensburg (1667–6767). whose landscapes with strong lighting are best represented in Schwerin, he worked in Augsburg, and finally Joachim Franz Beich (1665–1748), his sister master, whose etchings are valued, is in Munich.

Johann Heinrich Roos of Ottersberg (1631–1685) who worked in Frankfurt joined the Italianists of the Netherlands as a painter of animals, while Berchem went to Rome, where his son Philip Peter Roos (1681–1705), called Rose de Tivoli, moved to Rome, where he wrote purely decorative, often darkened later paintings with shepherds and herds, partly in full size, such as, for example, Dresden. Carl Andreas Rutgart, whose activity was described by Frymmel, was the main depicter of the hunting animal world. We only know that although Rutgart was temporarily, between 1663–1664, a member of the Antwerp Guild, he worked in Germany and Italy. His lively painted, but rather dryly painted in a yellow-gray tone hunting scenes and images of animal battles are particularly richly represented in Austrian collections; seven of them are in the gallery of Lichtenstein, twelve, according to Vastler (1888), in a privately held collection. Also characteristic of his "Bear Fight with Dogs" in Dresden. "A deer torn by a leopard" in Palazzo Pitti in Florence. Another soil is Georg Philip Rugendas (1666–1742), the Augsburg master, who took the pattern in the paintings of battles and horsemen, mainly Kyptya, but also declared himself an independent artist and a good draftsman. His engravings and etchings are famous. His pictures, heavy in tone, can best be seen in Brunswick and Hampton Court. Finally, a Hamburg native, Franz Werner Tamm, called Dapper (1658–1724), who completed his education in Italy and then settled in Vienna, wrote a living and dead poultry with a soft brush, rather decorative, with a direct mood.

To the Dutch in particular, North German painters. At the head of the German students Rembrandt, who returned to Germany, are two Lower Saxon Paudis and Owens.

Christoph Paudis (circa 1618–1667) on his return worked for some time in Vienna, and at the end of his life he became court painter to Duke Albrecht Sigmund in Freising, where he died. If we remove the “Literacy” in Dresden from the list of his works with fine paints and return it to Hölder, but again return to him the Munich “Player on the Lute”, his portrait figures and genre works in Dresden, Vienna and Schleisheim, to which also the dead nature adjoins 1660 in Petersburg, a whole series of rather characteristically conceived designs will be made up, in a weak tone painted, filled with gray light and light pictures.

Jürgen or Jurian Ovens (1623–1679), who was brought out of oblivion by Dora Schnittger, was a Schleswig native, and most of his paintings, of which the best are closer to Rembrandt than to Poudis, are north of Elba. His family portrait in Haarlem in 1650, of course, is more erotic than the late paintings of Beaul. The best of all is the "Wedding of Charles X of Sweden" (1654) in Stockholm and a group of regents in 1656 in Amsterdam, with black-cladded regents behind a red covered table, giving the impression of precursors of warmer and stronger ones, in the Rembrandt style, of course “The Stalameister” in 1661. By the later, weaker and more monotonous works of Owens belong the “Victory of Christianity” (1664) in the Schleswig Cathedral and the “Lamentation of Christ” (1675) in the church in Friedrichstadt.

Significantly Paudis and Ovens was Govart Flink of Cleves, which is why he resisted in Amsterdam. The first two are important in our eyes only in that they spread attention to Rembrandt in Germany.

A pupil of Vuverman in Gaarlem was a Hamburg native of Matthias Sheits (circa 1630–1701), who worked in his hometown as a painter and etcher. Lichtvark noted his special little book. His widely, in brown tone painted pictures, mostly directly and naturally transmitted, depict various episodes in the open air, public scenes, soldiers' adventures, peasant incidents, and on occasion also biblical stories and portraits. Likhtvark managed to connect most of his surviving paintings in the Hamburg art gallery. Their meaning lies precisely in the fact that Shayte portrays predominantly local, Hamburg, urban and rural mores and translates types and costumes from Dutch to Low German.

Finally, Frankfurt Abraham Mignon (1640–1679), a pupil of Jan Davids de Geem in Utrecht, joined the Dutch school. He worked mainly in Frankfurt. Noting the meticulous observation of nature and the writing of his paintings, we must not forget, however, how dry and cold they are alongside their models, the works of both de Gaiems.

So, this is what is characteristic of the whole German painting of the 17th century. This is the art of the second and third variety. With the exception of Elsheimer alone, which appeared just at the turn of the century, none of the named masters had any significance in the history of the development of art that went beyond the boundaries of the urban district where he lived.