Johann Franz Ermels
Johann Franz Ermels (also Ermel, Ermelein, Johann Franciscus Ermels; * 1641 Reilkirchen, † 1693 in Nuremberg ) was a German portrait, historical and landscape painter.
Life
Johann Franz Ermels was born in 1641 in Reilkirchen the son of a winemaker. His training as a historical and portrait painter was in Cologne for a successor to John Hulsman, then in Utrecht and from 1660 in Nuremberg. He lay there in 1661 an altarpiece as a sample before, became a citizen of the imperial city and approved master. In 1662 he joined the coming of Utrecht and Italy painter Willem van Bemmel, which triggered his switch to landscape painting. Ermels painted pastoral landscapes, staffierte for Bemmel figures and animals copied by Johann Heinrich Roos. Also, in the drawings he was very close to 1673 Bemmel, where he concentrated in painting more on the presentation of rocks in quarries.
As a versatile and apparently highly respected painter between portrait and landscape he had some students such as Johann Bartholomew Eichler, George Thomas Gutthäter, Felix Meyer and Georg Blendinger. This probably also learned from his friend Willem van Bemmel, who was not licensed as a Master. In 1673, he was visited by the later successful as a theater painter Oswald Harms, who had just arrived from Italy. Thereupon Ermels oriented new, he painted and drew landscapes of ruins now with temples and classical orders of columns. This he could also aptly staffieren with figures. His personal style stood between the classicism of the second half of the 17th century and the Utrechtschen Italianised, where Ermels not the big fashion Bemmels followed, but paid homage to the fine painting of his Dutch colleagues.
Ermels married twice and had six children, including son George Paul, who was also a painter. Since 1674, he suffered from gout, which slowed his work. From the late period only small works are known. He died after a long illness on December 3, 1693 in Nuremberg, Germany. From its very rare images, the landscapes are only known yet.