Ferdinand von Wright
Ferdinand von Wright ( 19 * March 1822 in Haminalahti in Kuopio, Finland, † July 31, 1906 in Kuopio ) was a Finnish painter and printmaker.
Life
Like his two older brothers Magnus von Wright and William Wright, he devoted himself to the representation of birds. He was also known for his landscapes and portraiture and still life.
Ferdinand von Wright spent his childhood at the family estate Haminalahti in Kuopio. His parents were born in the Major Henrik Magnus von Wright and Marie Elisabeth Tuderus. Ferdinand was their fifteenth and youngest child. Six of the children had died soon after birth. Besides Magnus and Wilhelm the brothers Fredrik Adolf Julius survived ( grandfather of the philosopher Georg Henrik von Wright) and the sisters Wilhelmina Fredrika and Rosalie. The family is originally from Scotland; the ancestor of George Wright settled in the mid-17th century as a merchant in Narva down.
The education Ferdinand received mostly by parents and private tutor. His mother tongue was Swedish, even though he was reading fluently Finnish and spoke. Be like his brothers also spent a lot of time on Ferdinand lifetime hunting and nature.
His artistic talent was already apparent from early on. As a sketchbook shows he worked on already ten years old with bird drawings. At this time his brothers Magnus and Wilhelm were already known in this field. At fifteen Ferdinand first went to Sweden and moved to his brother Wilhelm von Wright in the province of Bohuslän. William worked as an illustrator for the animal researcher Professor BF Fries. In 1838 he traveled to Mörkö in Stockholm and worked at the ornithologist Nils Bonde, in which his brothers were already his work on Swedish birds ( " Svenska Foglar " ) had illustrated. Ferdinand returned shortly with his two brothers Magnus and Wilhelm by Haminalahti pulled back and after a few months back to Sweden, this time for almost six years. There he studied at the Art Academy in 1842 temporarily at the Swedish sculptor Johan Niclas Byström.
In 1844, Ferdinand moved back to Haminalahti. To 1849, he studied for some time in the city of Turku in the Finnish portrait painter Robert Wilhelm Ekman.
1852 Ferdinand traveled to his brother Magnus to Helsinki and moved there for a time also an apartment with Ateljé. Here he refined his art and changed his style. He painted his first ambitious and independent works, such as the large-format " fox and geese ".
1858 Ferdinand undertook a study tour for two months after Dresden. His teacher was the animal painter Johann Siegwald Dahl. He then traveled for a year after his brother William on the West Swedish Orust and remained until the spring of 1859 in Sweden.
1863 Ferdinand moved a house on the estate Haminalahti, where he was to live and work in the next twenty years. The house was called " Lugnet " ( Sw: peace ). He led there a lonely, nature-loving life as a bachelor, but without departing from the family. Some winter he spent in the nearby town of Kuopio in which dwelt among other things, his sisters.
In the seventies ill Ferdinand von Wright permanently and was often bedridden. His work, however, he continued.
1874 Ferdinand broke up for a few weeks to Helsinki. End of the 70s he moved out of his house " Lugnet " in the main building of the estate and moved there two rooms upstairs, where he should still live for almost three decades. At this stage, he produced a number of works, mostly commercial work. Among the later works painted in 1886 represents the "Battle of the capercaillie " probably his most famous work dar. He has also published his ornithological observations in several magazines.
When his students stayed in 1864 Thorsten Waenerberg and some years later Berndt Lindholm in Haminalahti. In the nineties was the Finnish bird painter Matti Karppanen Ferdinand's pupil and assistant in Haminalahti.
In 1881 he joined for a month at his last trip to Sweden Orust to visit his brother William. 1885, a state pension artist he was zugewilligt. He lived in Haminalahti very withdrawn and painted until his death in 1906.