Johann Heinrich Meyer
Johann Heinrich Meyer ( born March 16, 1760 at Stafa Zurich, † October 14, 1832 in Jena) was a Swiss painter and writer on art. The Füssli students went to Rome in 1784, was built in 1787 Goethe's friend, lived since 1791 in Weimar, where he worked from 1806 as Director of the royal free drawing school and was Goethe's right-hand man in matters of art. Henry Meyer is known as Kunschtmeyer or as Goethe Meyer.
Life
The 16 -year-old Heinrich Meyer, son of the merchant and Zurich citizen Johann Baptist Meyer, initially took drawing lessons in his native town.
Two years later, makes him Johann Caspar Füssli (1707-1782), the father of Johann Heinrich Füssli, in Zurich with the work of the German archaeologist and writer Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768) known. Its history of Ancient Art was published in 1764 in Dresden. To perpetuate the beautiful work of art to depict the noble simplicity and quiet grandeur, this ideal Winckelmann coined the restrained young Henry Meyer. That ideal continues to stand as a leitmotif through Heinrich Meyer's artistic aspirations and creativity.
1784 goes Heinrich Meyer as an artist to Rome and brings out good and right in the German colony by. 1786 he met Goethe in Rome. Goethe impressed by the knowledge of the reserved Heinrich Meyer in the matters of art of the ancients. 1788 Heinrich Meyer worked as an art teacher in Naples and became friends with the painter Tischbein ( 1751-1829 ). In Naples he met the Duchess Anna Amalia Weimar (1739-1807) and Herder ( 1744-1803 ). In Venice he meets up again with Goethe in 1790 and goes to Weimar in 1791. Heinrich Meyer remains until end of his life - apart from occasional trips - in the Thuringian duchy.
Until 1802, he lives in Goethe's house. First, he directs the conversion of the residential building in the classical style. 1795 Heinrich Meyer Professor and in 1806 director of the Weimar outdoor signs Institute. 1795 followed by two years of art studies in Florence and Rome. In 1799 he takes over the space of design management in the decorative paintings and decorations in Weimar Stadtschloss. 1798 brings Heinrich Meyer along with Goethe, the art magazine Propylaea as a successor to the 1795 launched by Schiller Horen out. At Schiller's Horen Meyer has been wearing artist reviews than contributions in writing the history of modern visual arts at. By 1805, Goethe and Heinrich Meyer set in the Propylaea price tasks for visual artists. For example, in 1802 and win Ludwig Hummel Johann Martin von Rohden, both from Kassel, the price on a given topic " Perseus frees Andromeda ". 26 artists and art lovers had participated. Schadow (1764-1850) taunts from Berlin in 1801 against the two Weimar " art critics ". 1802 Heinrich Meyer and Goethe are taunted by an anonymous reviewer in the Leipzig newspaper for the elegant world. Goethe is beside himself. Anton Kippenberg (1874-1950) was 1925 Karoline Herder ( Herder 's wife ) as the reviewer entanonymisieren. 1806 can not be challenged because of the public humiliation the price tasks.
In January 1803 Henry Meyer married eleven years younger Weimaranerin Amalie of Koppenfels. At first, the couple lives in Jena, but returned to Weimar. The marriage remained childless and was said to be happy. Amalie died in 1825. Heinrich Meyer does not marry again.
From 1804 general literature appear in the newspaper Jenaische art historical contributions by the acronym WKF Behind this are the Weimar Art Friends Goethe, Heinrich Meyer, Carl Ludwig Fernow (see list of known art historian ) and Friedrich August Wolf. 1805 appears Winckelmann and his century. From 1816, when with W.K.F. signed classical essays in Goethe Magazine On Art and Antiquity appear behind the cipher alone Heinrich Meyer.
1807 is Councillor Henry Meyer. From 1809 to 1815 he wrote to his History of Art, which was published posthumously in 1974. 1824-1836 appears in Dresden his three -volume history of the visual arts among the Greeks. Of course, Henry Meyer provided input to Goethe's large-scale color theory - eg the ambience of the ancient painters.
Goethe familiar to Heinrich Meyer's judgment as an art expert. Heinrich Meyer conveys, as Goethe 1808 dispute with the Duke because of the Weimar court theater. The friendship with Goethe continues to the end of life Henry Meyers, so for 45 years, perhaps because the retired living lonely, silent, honest, hardworking, good ( Goethe in his Italian Journey ) friend always understood as a servant. In contrast to Eckermann had Henry Meyers Serve nothing to do with submissiveness. Goethe says Heinrich Meyer and any other of the completion of Faust II on the same day.
Portrait
Quotes
- Goethe's secretary David Friedrich Theodor herbs (1790-1856) recalls the evening usually visited him the Councillor Meyer where the entertainment curry favor with this laconic Swiss mostly to works of art relates ( Pollmer ).
- Heinrich Meyer confessed Friedrich von Müller in an interview one of the secrets of his decades-long friendship with Goethe: I have but never presumptuous to try [Goethe ] impose upon him my views and feelings ( Grumach ).
- Goethe's letter to Johann Friedrich Reichardt on 17 November 1791 I am pleased to see you here, and if I can offer you the same no quarter ( the Swiss Meyer, whose lives you Remember Venice from my upper floor) so you should take but by the way Being received in the most friendly; I hope to find enough time abzuhandeln the important matters of the five senses with you.
- Friedrich von Müller on a conversation with Goethe and Meyer on May 10, 1819 For Goethe, who was very cheerful, I met an interesting young American from Boston named Coxwell, who had already traveled about three years in Europe. The conversation turned to long to Lord Byron, Goethe declared to be the only great poet of the present time. " If we were twenty years younger ," Goethe said to Meyer, " so we sailed to North America. "
- Joseph Sebastian Green (1780-1864) about a conversation with Goethe on 24 August 1823 evening came Councillor Meyer. " One of my oldest friends ," said Goethe, " I have a lot to thank in judgment of works of art ". Councillor Meyer, an unpretentious man who in the dialects of the natives Swiss somewhat betrayed, seemed to fallen in this utterance of Goethe in embarrassment.
- Friedrich Christoph Förster ( writer, historian, 1791-1868 ), on November 9, 1825 at the table with Goethe: They sat down after instructed courts to table. The mine was between superstructure Rath Coudray and Councillor Henry Meyer, known as the artists under the name Kunschtmeyer, the contracted him its Alemannic -Swiss pronunciation.
- Johann Karl Wilhelm Zahn ( Berlin painter, art historian and architect, 1800-1871 ), in September 1827 table of Goethe: Riemer represented philology, Meyer art history and Eckermann unrolled itself as an endless Citatenknäuel for any subject. In between, he listened with drawn breath the words of the Master, he seemed like oracles to learn by heart immediately. Meyer, however, who was called the Kunschtmeyer because of his Swiss dialect, lingered on the countenance of his old childhood friend with pathetic eyes that expressed as much tenderness as admiration. The conversation lingered especially in Italy and its art treasures.