David Hess (painter)
David Hess ( born November 29, 1770 in Zurich, † April 11, 1843 in Unterstrass ) was a Zurich writer, caricaturist and politician.
Life
David Hess grew up on the Beckenhof, a country estate in Zurich sub rhinestones. His father Johann Rudolf Hess was Zürcher officer in the Dutch service, his mother Martha de la Tour, the daughter of a French mining entrepreneur. At his father's request he followed from 1787 to 1796 the military career in the Swiss Guard in Holland. He witnessed the massacre of the French revolutionary troops at the Swiss Garden, which made him a resolute opponent of the French Revolution. 1796 David Hess returned back to Zurich. The arrival of French troops and the end of the Old Confederacy, he experienced as a captain of the Zurich troops in Aarberg. At the fighting around Bern and the Battle of the gray wood, however, he did not participate.
In May of the following year he married Anna Hirzel, but died in 1802 after the birth of the second child. In 1805 he married Salome Vischer.
In September 1798, he had the Second Battle of Zurich directly witnessed, even in his estate were foreign soldiers quartered, an unpleasant side effect of the time of the Helvetic Republic. Later he participated in a campaign against the billeting. With the beginning of the mediation period 1803 David Hess again took part in political life. He was a member from 1803 to 1830 at the Zurich Grand Council, but where he was not especially active. He used a large circle of friends, which figures such as Johann Martin Usteri or Johann Gottfried Ebel included. Adolescent Conrad Ferdinand Meyer he knew as well as Philipp Christoph Kayser. Also as a member of the Zurich artist society it was anchored in the cultural life of the city. In his last years he withdrew more and more into the reading. He died on 11 April 1843 the Beckenhof.
Work
1795 appeared in London the 20 cartoons Hollandia regenerata in which Hess criticized the excesses of the Batavian Republic. Other goals of his often unpublished cartoons were the Zurich government and Napoleon Bonaparte.
In addition to his diary Hess wrote a biography of Salomon Landolt, the Governor of Greifensee. In the entertaining " Badenfahrt " of 1818 Hess described the city of Baden with its bathing and drew the illustrations themselves to do so. Under the pseudonym David Hildebrand, he published in 1801 successfully humorous manners images. He remained a sharp critic of the post-revolutionary conditions and democratic aspirations. In 1832, as in Uster threatened in their existence Small manufacturers a mechanical spinning factory set fire, Hess commented on the Maschinensturm mockingly:
" Perceptive, the people are not yet, Since the brightest daylight, The festival in Uster to be celebrate, For necessary was to illuminate. "
Miscellaneous
- Gottfried Keller called Hess a witty dilettantes, Hess referred to himself as an active idlers.
- After David Hess, a street is named in Zurich Wollishofen.
- From November 2007 to February 2008 an exhibition on David Hess was held in the Central Library Zurich. The library also manages the bulk of his estate.
Works (selection)
- Hollandia regenerata. London 1795.
- Small paintings, reminiscences and broken thoughts of a dilettante. Orell Füssli, Zurich 1802.
- Fun and seriousness in stories. Orell Füssli, Zurich 1816.
- The Badenfahrt. Orell Füssli, Zurich 1818 edition. Baden -Verlag, Baden 1969.
- Salomon Landolt. A character image after life painted. Orell Füssli, Zurich 1820.