Carl Spitzweg sought to capture the poetry of the profane with his pictures, something he achieved with the cheerful light-heartedness of an artist who did not have to worry about earning a living. The Late Romantic moved with confidence on the fine line between transfiguration and mockery and created an extensive body of work that delights countless viewers still today.
(...) Continue readingCarl Sitzweg – Wealthy family; trainee pharmacist
Carl Spitzweg was born on 5 February 1808, the second son of the Munich merchant and bourgeois Simon Spitzweg and his wife Franziska. He had a sheltered upbringing but lost his mother at the age of eleven. His father had clear ideas about his son’s future – Carl was to train to be a pharmacist. The artistically gifted boy found school difficult at times, and although he felt drawn to painting from early on, he followed his father’s wish and began an apprenticeship with Franz Xaver Pettenkofer at the Königlich-Bayerisch Hofapotheke in Munich. In the last year of his apprenticeship his father died, and from 1929 Carl Spitzweg worked for a year in the Löwenapotheke in Straubing where he cultivated lively contact with painters and theatre workers. After graduating with honours from studies in botany, chemistry and pharmacy, he was licensed to practise as a pharmacist and worked for about a year in that position, before deciding to dedicate his career entirely to painting on the receipt of a substantial inheritance.
A self-taught artist; numerous study trips
Carp Spitzweg never received any formal training as a painter. He advanced his talent with sharp observation and numerous study trips over many years to Dalmatia, Venice, Paris, London, Antwerp, Frankfurt and Heidelberg, at times accompanied by his friend, the landscape painter Eduard Schleich. In 1939, Spitzweg created his most famous picture Der Arme Poet (The Poor Poet), already displaying inimitably all the master’s preferences and idiosyncrasies. It was not, however, so well received by the critics of the time, was classed as a “mockery of poetry”, and rejected from exhibition. In 1844, Carl Spitzweg was employed by the Freie Blätter, for which he contributed numerous humorous drawings. He had great success in the 1867 World Exhibition in Paris, which brought him much praise from the critics, and his numerous pictures, often painted in small format on the lids of cigar boxes, found a growing market.
Satire without fright; master of colours
No other artist was as successful in awakening the longing for the supposedly “good old times” whilst simultaneously exposing them as a dreamy illusion with tongue-in-cheek irony. As much as he touched on human weaknesses and social transgressions, he always kept a distance from the real potholes, which he carefully avoided even in his most mocking depictions. Spitzweg did all this with a unique sense of colour which he could thank his knowledge of pharmacy for – his colour blends proved to be particularly stable and his blue had an intensity not found anywhere else.
Carl Spitzweg died of a stroke on 23 September 1885 at the age of 77 in his Munich apartment. Although he gained a certain amount of recognition during his lifetime and won over the middle classes in particular with their new purchasing power, it was only after the Second World War that his work reached the popularity it still enjoys today.
Carl Spitzweg - Works that have already been sold at Kunsthaus Lempertz:
