Alexandre Calame

Alexandre Calame ( born May 28, 1810 in Arabie, community Corsier -sur -Vevey, today a part of Vevey, † March 19, 1864 in Menton ) was a Swiss painter.

Life

Calame was the son of a marble worker in Vevey. At 15, he entered a banking business. In his leisure hours he began to practice in drawing and colorization small views of Switzerland. In 1829, it allowed him his employer, the banker Diodati, to take lessons from the painter François Diday landscape. After a few months Calame, decided to devote himself entirely to art.

Since 1835, he exhibited his Swiss Alps and forest landscapes in Paris and Berlin. They earned great applause quickly, especially in Germany, although Calame was more draftsman than a colorist. 1838 is his stay in Dusseldorf guarantees during a study tour. In 1842 he went to Paris and erected his Montblanc, the Virgin, Lake Brienz, Monte Rosa and Mont Cervin.

In 1844 he went to Italy and brought from Rome and Naples with numerous images, including the ruins of Paestum, today in the municipal museum in Leipzig. He showed that he could be understood also the Italian nature in its peculiarity; but his specialty remained the Alpine landscape. Glaciers, mountain water, the storm splintered trees, clouds and rocks he recorded with great fidelity to nature, albeit with a certain smoothness.

One of his most recognized works is the representation of the four seasons and times of day in four landscapes where a spring morning south, the summer lunch is a Nordic flat landscape, autumn evening and the winter night are mountain pieces. Even more popular than by those large works was Calame by minor works, lithographs and etchings, including by 18 studies of Lauterbrunnen and Meiringen and the 24 sheets of Alpine crossings, which were widely circulated in France, England and Germany, and even today as templates for drawing lessons serve.

Gallery Lucerne

Lake Lucerne, 1849

Lake Lucerne, 1849

Lake Lucerne, 1851

Lake Lucerne with Urirotstock 1861

Selections

  • View from Petit Saconnex to Geneva and Mont Blanc, 1834, canvas, 31 × 44 cm. (Winterthur, Oskar Reinhart Museum )
  • The temples of Paestum, 1847, canvas, 195 × 260 cm. (Leipzig, Museum of Fine Arts)
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