Johann Georg Edlinger

Johann Georg Edlinger (* March 1, 1741 in Graz, † September 15, 1819 in Munich) was an Austrian painter. According to Thieme -Becker is his real name " Josef Georg (from) Edlinger ". Undeniably, however, is its importance as a portraitist of his time in the southern half of the German language area.

Life

Johann Georg Edlinger was the son of the gardener Josef Edlinger and his wife Therese. His creative abilities were recognized early on and Edlinger was at the grammar school of his native city the first art lessons. To In 1752 he became an apprentice of the Graz church painter Embert. At age 17, he left the workshop of his teacher Mr. and wandered through the next three years Austria and Hungary. Then he returned to Graz.

In 1765 he went to Vienna, where he was an employee in the studio of the painter TUCHMEYER. Through its connections Edlinger came in late 1774 to Munich at the Royal School of Drawing and became a pupil of the court painter Franz Ignaz Oefele. In contrast to Vienna, where Edlinger had rather prescribed the Rococo, he saw his role model in the work of the Swedish painter George de Marées.

Edlinger developed the style of the late Marées on; the culmination of this effort was a portrait of Elisabeth Auguste of the Palatinate, the wife of the Elector Karl Theodor. But it was not until 1781 until Edlinger was appointed " Royal Bavarian court painter ". As such Edlinger soon got orders from the courts in Augsburg, Mannheim, Stuttgart and many more

Already in 1775 married Edlinger in Munich Maria Anna Barbara Welser and had with her six children. However, his ideal of a realistic portraiture led him over time in economic difficulties. After the separation of the so-called Sturm und Drang period by the classicism demand dropped rapidly after unflattering portraits, and Edlinger was " willful " in order to adapt to this change. At the age of 78 years he died on 15 September 1819 in Munich in deep poverty.

Although Edlinger surpassed as a representative of classicism colleagues like Andreas Seidl, Joseph Hauber or Gerhard Caspar Klotz, he stands in the landscape painting but very close to Johann Georg von Dillis. Lorenz Westenrieder Edlinger praised his realistic tendencies because as "... indisputably the best portrait painter in Germany ".

The " - Edlinger Mozart"

Johann Georg Edlinger probably created in 1790 in Munich, a portrait that was listed in the catalog of the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin until 2002, under the title "Lord in the green dress-coat ". Since 2002, the official title of a complete catalog is " Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ( 1756-1791 ), circa 1790 ." The art historian Rolf Schenk discovered this work in research for his dissertation in the depot of the Berlin Gemäldegalerie and could safely ascribe Edlinger. 1995 saw Wolfgang Seiller, a descendant Edlinger, a similarity of the depicted person with that on the Bologna Portrait of WA Mozart, whose authenticity is proved. In 2000, a report was published this in the Mozart -Jahrbuch. Rolf Schenk, who was now in the field of art history as the leading expert Edlinger, Mozart in 2005 confirmed the assignment. Martin Brown (2006) has pointed out in a statistical study of facial features that the portrait with a probability of 10 million -to-one same person is like on the famous Mozart portrait in Bologna.

In contrast, the view was presented by Richard Bauer, is concerned here is a portrait of the merchant and the Munich City Council Joseph Anton Steiner ( 1753-1813 ).

2006, the Mozart - assignment of four well-known art historians at the National Austrian Gallery in Vienna was confirmed, from Gerbert Frodl, Sabine Grabner, Michael Krapf, and Udo Felbinger. The alternative hypothesis of a merchant association has so far been supported by any art historian, which is not to be expected in the future, since Brown and Michaelis 2006 found out that it was based on a technical mistake.