Alexander Bruckmann
Ferdinand Alexander Bruckmann ( born February 21, 1806 Ellwangen, † February 9, 1852 in Stuttgart ) was a German historical and portrait painter.
Life
Bruckmann came from a 1725 based in Heilbronn family of merchants and silversmiths. His father, Johann August (from) Bruckmann ( 1776-1835 ) was a builder, while his uncle Peter Bruckmann ( 1778-1850 ) had founded the silverware factory Bruckmann Heilbronn.
Alexander Bruckmann was born in Ellwangen, where his father was a county government building officer. His younger brother August Eduard Bruckmann (1810-1884) later became like the father is an architect, while Alexander Bruckmann showed artistic talent. As the family now lived again in Heilbronn, his father gave him in 1820 the Bruckmannsche silverware factory, where he learned the engraver and medal- under the guidance of his uncle and the then employed there sculptor Conrad Weitbrecht.
Due to an eye condition had Bruckmann give up this activity and took instead the painting. He came in 1827 to Stuttgart at Eberhard von guard to to train as a painter, and studied in the years 1827-1829 at the Munich Art Academy mainly under the direction of Heinrich Hess. A Odysseus with the sirens image showing that he exhibited at the Munich art exhibition in 1829, was bought by King William I of Württemberg.
From autumn 1829 to 1832 he lived in Rome, from where he sent for the state scholarship granted him the big picture Barbarossa's body is pulled from the Calycadnus in the home. Then he settled briefly in Heilbronn down, but in 1833 went to Munich, where he led the bedchamber of King Ludwig I with 14 images pictured in the residence partly from designs by Heinrich Hess, partly from his own designs based on motifs from the poems of Theocritus. The bedroom of Queen Therese he decorated with scenes from the wedding of Helen with Menelaus.
In 1834 he met in Munich to the philosophers and politicians Friedrich Rohmer ( 1814-1856 ) know whose faithful follower and confidant he was and whom he supported financially. For friendship joined the family tie after Bruckmann had married in 1843 Rohmer's sister Mathilde. The artistic development Bruckmanns came from then something in the background because it was his friendship important to Rohmer.
1835 died Johann August Bruckmann in Ulm, and Alexander Bruckmann made his way to prove to his father last respects. On the way to Ulm, he was thrown from an accident out of the car, hit his head on a stone pile and pulled to a severe concussion, which he indeed recovered first back to him but violent for the rest of his life head suffering and pain brought and led to depression.
Bruckmann returned to Munich. His talent was recognized; according to his designs Friedrich Preller resulted in Hartel 's house in Leipzig in 1836 a frieze in painting style of Greek vase painting with scenes from the Odyssey from. Even as his best easel pictures viewed images such as The Wives of Weinsberg (1836, according to the trust - women - event ), The Girl of the stranger ( 1838, after Schiller) and Romeo and Juliet (1840, engraved by Anton Duttenhofer and by Württemberg Kunstverein distributed as a gift ) date from this period.
As of 1840, Bruckmann devoted almost exclusively to portraiture, mainly in Stuttgart, but mainly in Ulm, Augsburg, Zurich and elsewhere. He produced major works in this period only a few, including the painting Thusnelda in captivity ( 1851) and two large fresco images ( 1846) in the ballroom of the Stuttgart Museum of Fine Arts (now the Old State Gallery ), The Birth of Aphrodite and the h Lucas, the Madonna painting; In addition there is also three smaller Surporten with allegories of the three Fine Arts architecture, sculpture and painting.
Bruckmanns caused by his accident in 1835 health problems bother him at work and got worse, so he finally feared blindness and madness with time. To avoid this fate, he committed suicide on February 9, 1852 life.
Reception
August Wintterlin writes about Bruckmann, he was once counted among the most promising talented artists Württemberg, but the mature age have not kept in him what youth had promised. The General German Biography he ruled in 1876: "B. composed on with much intelligence and diligence; his characters always enjoy by a refined and warm pathos; his coloring, initially very strong and clear, later became turbid and sometimes dry; among his portraits can be found quite admirable performances alongside weaker surprising. "